Constructivism & Inquiry
How does a Library Commons model support learners and educators?
Constructivism and the Learning Commons
While the concept map shown below is very simplistic (particularly when I see my peers' examples), it clearly laid out for me the core concepts, theories and theorists. I found the Constructivism course to be the most challenging of the courses I took as part of the MET program, in large part because it began with a philsophical discussion of epistemologies vs ontologies. It took me nearly three weeks to begin to make sense of the readings of the first week and I still struggle to grasp some of the main philosophical ideas. In part, it reminded me of Star Trek discussions of time travel and the possibilities of changing the course of events by going back in time. My main understandings of Constructivism, though, continue to allow me to look at course design in new ways. I am more careful to build in social learning opportunities through the use of forums and wikis. I structure questions more carefully to be open-ended and I structure problems to be slightly wrong. I continue to read and research project-based learning as a means of increasing student engagement in learning, particularly boys and Aboriginal learners through situatedness. I also seek to build game structures into learning opportunities in the library, due to the huge number of young adults (particularly boys) who come to the library to play Minecraft and other online games. I build reflections into lesson plans and seek more opportunities for self and peer assessment, although this is an ongoing challenge due to the time constraints often imposed on secondary school timetables.
As an extension of the goals of Constructivism, a plan for next year includes having "Maker" sessions in the Learning Commons. These hands-on, craft or technology projects lead by community members give students the chance to build something with support and guidance, while using the Learning Commons space in a different manner. I'll link a more traditional "library" aspect to the Maker sessions by having a links page available on the library website, and I'll have our print resources on crafts, science and technology projects available to students, too. By beginning to build a community of "makers", I want to ensure students and the community at large see the Learning Commons space as a resource for all kinds of knowledge, not just "book" knowledge. While Dewey expressed that situated learning had to occur in the actual space of an event (eg. a farm or factory), situatedness has changed since the early 20th century thanks to modern technologies. I want students to have to opportunity to work on real projects with mentors in a space where digital information and resources are available to support and extend the projects.
The process of Guided Inquiry as described by Kuhlthau, Caspari and Maniotes in Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21st century (2007), is firmly rooted in Dewey and the Constructivist model of learning, as well the learning theories of Bruner, Piaget and Vygotsky. While this textbook details the theoretical reasoning behind the guided inquiry process, teacher librarians in many jurisdictions, including British Columbia, have created basic frameworks for the guided inquiry process to assist in giving educators a common language by which to help students. In my EDES 542 class, I was responsible for creating a demonstration of how to teach the planning stage of guided inquiry (see below). This was a helpful means to get me thinking about the specific steps where intervention might be necessary to assist students and was the first time I had worked with the Prezi demonstration tool. I found it somewhat frustrating, though, to be completing what seemed to be almost a "read and regurgitate" type project. Fortunately, the rest of the course was sufficiently deep to engage me in ongoing reflection about how I taught or framed inquiry for students. It also lead to the idea of creating a course specifically to teach this process to senior students before they went to university, while also using social media tools for sharing the learning process. I was inspired by American teacher librarian, Buffy Hamilton's blogs about her Media 21 course and used her model to create a similarly structured course for grades 11 and 12 in my school district. After sharing the idea with my principal, he suggested I submit the course for School Board authorization. I was please that the course was approved and I was able to teach it for the first time in the spring of 2012. As part of ETEC 512, I critiqued my course syllabus to further improve my understanding of how constructivist theories, situated learning and distributed learning could be applied more effectively to the course. Having recently finished teaching it, I was eager to deconstruct the problems and create solutions, where possible. One of the challenges, though, will continue to be the engagement piece for students who are placed into a course simply because of limited options, rather than personal interest. This is not something that either constructivist theory or guided inquiry will be able to address, in my opinion, as the collaborative nature of the learning in this course is resisted by students who are disinterested.Bra
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