In reading this week's articles about constructivism, I was struck by the direct correlations I saw between constructivist principles and current guidelines (at least in higher ed) regarding active learning engagement particularly emphasized in virtual learning. There's the heavy emphasis on learning as a social, collaborative activity, which lends itself directly to things like focused group work, course forums, and weekly discussions. Then there's problem-solving activities, and I couldn't help but think of self-guided assessments and material-based quizzes, or even developing solutions to case studies. Finally the link between experiential context in active learning, or one of my favorite lines "learning is an active process of meaning-making" (Wilson, 2018), reminded me of all the individual context/environment based assignments I've seen crop up as a virtual graduate student. In my last job, discussions of the student perspective in the classroom and handling privilege and other factors was a constant focus. The descriptions of instructional models and the redefinition of the teacher in the learning space also reminded me of our first week's reading by John Dewey and his re-envisioning of the role of the teacher in the classroom. This week's articles and chapters actually helped solidify for me how relatively young this field still is, and got me excited about the future of IST. As technology in learning continues to evolve, so will our field, and I think the deep ties between IST and Ed Psych will make our future understandings of learning all the more relevant to a global, virtual, educational environment.
susinc
Hi, Susannah
The quoted words by Wilson "learning is an active process of meaning-making" are really remarkable. Indeed, learning is a process. This process is full of meaning-making, and it also makes it an active process. Interactive learning, teaching, and continuous improvement make the learning process even more meaningful. I am also excited about the bright future of IST. The more I learned about IST and educational psychology, the more I would like to learn about how to help students to learn more effectively.
Thanks for sharing.
Sungling
Hi Susannah,
I like that you brought up "individual context/environment based assignments" as a constructivist-based practice. It's interesting how much more prevalent these seem to be in IST, or at least in the courses I've taken thus far. Now, my perspective is a little different, as I’m a residential Master’s student; however I think quite a few of our courses do overlap (this one, R521, R561…maybe?) Anyway, although the pandemic forced me to take more virtual courses than I’d’ve preferred last year, we are now doing our Master’s Studio sequence on campus. I bring that up because those courses are focused exclusively on our specific thesis capstone project that we develop over 3 semesters. However, while the course sequence is…