1 hour
45 mins
Session 4 part 2: Developing the
independent learner
Slide 1
Flipchart paper, pens, A4 paper
May need laptops/PCs
Note: this session runs over three sessions, with a
break after an hour. Remember to take a break
after one hour.
(0 mins)
• Introduce the session
Developing the independent
learner with higher order &
critical thinking skills
Session 4 (Part 2) – Pedagogy
Skills Workshop
Slide 2
“Tell me and I
forget, show me
and I remember,
involve me and I
understand”
Chinese Proverb
The Morgan Library, Wikimedia
Slide 3
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, you will:
1. Learn about constructivism & experiential
learning
2. Understand why constructivism is
important to trainers
3. Learn how to apply constructivist principles
in your training delivery
4. Begin to understand the theory behind the
learner-centred approach
Slide 2-3 (3 mins)
• The Chinese proverb is highlighting the fact
that in order for a person to experience deeplearning (as opposed to shallow, superficial
learning) then as trainers we must involve
them in the learning. This can be achieved
through engaging participants in learning
activities or tasks.
• Ask participants to discuss the quotation and
draw links to their own learning experiences.
• Highlight the learning objectives for the
session.
Slide 4
Experiential learning task
Build a ‘paper’ tower
Michael Slonecker, Wikimedia
Hacklock, Flickr.com
Slide 5
Task: Build a paper tower
Build a paper tower in your teams:
• This task involves designing and
constructing a stable, free standing
tower.
• The team with the tallest tower,
standing for 1 minute wins.
• Materials: paper only
Slide 4-6 (30 mins)
• We are going to look at two theorists: David
Kolb (experiential learning) and Jerome Bruner.
The underlying principles of modern
constructivism is that we construct new
knowledge through reflecting on our past
experiences, linking what is already known
(our prior knowledge) with new information.
For this approach to work the educator or
trainer must facilitate the process of learning.
This will result in an experiential rather than a
didactic (teacher-centred), passive learning
experience.
• To help us understand the role of trainer as a
facilitator, we will complete an experiential
learning exercise. The exercise is a unique
learning experience: it will help you identify
the key skills of a facilitator as well as put you
in the position of a learner at the same time.
• Take some paper and construct a paper
tower – like the one in slide 4.
• The purpose of the exercise is for
participants to learn how it feels to guide other
people’s learning (to build a paper tower) but
also to acknowledge the importance of
teamwork, excellent listening skills and clear
instructions. In other words putting
themselves in the unique role of being a
learner and facilitator.
• Introduce the experiential learning activity.
Break participants into groups of 5-6 and
hand out the paper (you can also prepare
the paper in advance by placing a packet of
paper on each table).
The group have about 15 – 20 minutes to
construct the tower.
• Half way through the activity, ask the
participants to stop constructing the tower
to reflect on the roles they are playing in the
team.
Is there a dominant member of the group?
Are there quieter members? Ask the
dominant members to stop playing a central
role in the final stage of activity and ask the
quieter members to take the lead.
• Start counting down when you are 2
minutes before the end of the activity, say
you have one minute and then you have 30
seconds, 10 seconds and stop.
• The tower that can stand up the longest is
the winner.
Slide 6
Activity Purpose?
“In constructivism experience plays a central
role in learning”
The activity requires you to:
use existing knowledge of construction
highlights the importance of teamwork
alerts you to different roles people play in a team
stresses importance of listening &
communicating
• stimulates creative & problem solving skills
•
•
•
•
Slide 7
Constructivism
Nationaal Archief, Flickr
• 5 mins
• Spend about 5-7 minutes reflecting on the
task. Ask participants to tell you what they
learned from the experience. Did they
notice any dominators, how did the group
dynamics change when they were asked to
take a less prominent role?
• Comment on the learning experience and
try to highlight the purpose of the exercise
(see the slide)
• Ask them how they settled on the shape of
the paper brick (note: a cone shape is the
most effective and stable brick); did the
dynamics change when the quieter
members took the lead?
(1 mins)
• Constructivist theory is like building a house.
Each house is unique and may require new
skills or approaches. However, if we have built
a house before then we can capitalise on this
experience and apply it to our new building
project. Even if we have never built a house,
we know that a house is built on a stable
foundation and has rooms like a kitchen, a
bathroom and so on. When you recall
constructivist theory think of building a house
and building on existing knowledge. As you
were asked to build a tower, you would have
first thought about what a tower looked like
before you began to build your tower.
• Introduce the theory of constructivism by
relating the theory to building a house.
Slide 8
Social Constructivist Theory
– Experiences play a central role in learning
• life, work, education or play
– Ideas are formed and re-formed through
social setting
– Collaboratively constructing knowledge
– Bring shared ideas to learning process
– Learning is an iterative process (process
of repetition, with each ‘iteration’ informing
the basis of the next).
(3 mins)
• We started the session with an experiential
learning activity because we wanted to
reinforce that making learning enjoyable is
central to the role of learning. We all had
preconceived ideas of what a facilitator is but
how many of us put ourselves in the role of the
learner. Hopefully this exercise has reminded
us of the position of a learner and that learning
can be fun, active rather than passive.
• Co-constructing knowledge, and reflection
are key attributes of constructivist theory. The
trainer acts as a facilitator and resource person
which increases the participant’s sense of
autonomy and independence. This approach is
termed the learner-centred approach to
teaching and learning and is useful in a variety
of contexts and situations.
• The facilitator sets problems that force the
participant to draw on their prior knowledge to
solve the problem. The facilitator adds value by
supplementing the prior knowledge with new
knowledge.
• Review the Kolb learning cycle by asking
participants to recall. Recap by emphasising
the points on the slide.
Slide 9
Social learning theorists
• Stress interaction over observation
– Testing ideas
– Synthesising the ideas of others
– Builds a deeper understanding of learning
concepts
– Discussion: ability to communicate ideas
– Ability to generalise & transfer concepts
– Promotes higher-order thinking skills
Slide 8 - 9 (3 mins)
• The constructivist theorists stressed the
importance of learning in social settings, where
the learner was involved in testing ideas and
actively engaged in the learning process, rather
than passive observers. This approach enables
the learner to gain a deep understanding of
the learning concepts and through discussion
begin to own and internalise the new
concepts. This experience promotes the
higher-order thinking skills David Kolb
promoted: analysing, evaluating and creating!
• As a trainer it is your responsibility to
develop the critical thinking skills of your
training participants. Innovative and creative
thinkers, who are willing to debate and test
ideas, make a significant contribution to
society as they are capable of solving complex
problems and contributing new ‘ideas’.
• Show the slide.
Slide 10
Critical thinkers
Are the best problem solvers, because they:
• see a complex problem through multiple
lenses
• Are innovative thinkers
• are willing to ‘disagree’
• able to deconstruct ideas & problems
• are willing to test deeply held assumptions
• are debaters
Slide 11
Educational Psychology
• Jerome Bruner, American psychologist
• Significant contributions to:
– Cognitive learning theory in educational
psychology
– How we encode, store, retrieve and
process information in the brain
– Coined the term ‘scaffolding’
• Building on information the learner has already
mastered
3 mins
Show the slide and comment on the attributes
/ capabilities of a critical thinker, Do
participants agree or disagree?
http://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/4secrets-of-great-critical-thinkers.html
(1 mins)
• Jerome Bruner is a modern constructivist
and most recent contributor to thinking on this
approach. His work focused on how we
encode, store, retrieve and process
information in our brain. He also coined the
term ‘scaffolding’, which defines the process
for building on the information the already has
already mastered. Recognising we all come
with prior knowledge is the central concept of
‘scaffolding’ where the trainer makes
assessments about what is already known and
then provides new information based on the
gaps in knowledge.
• Show the slide.
Slide 12
Bruner’s Five E’s
Explore
Engage
Explain
Evaluate
(3 mins)
• Bruner created the five E's of constructivism.
These attributes are: engage, explore, explain,
elaborate and evaluate. In order to make
learning effective and memorable a trainer
must include each of these attributes in their
training.
Elaborate
Training Event, Siobhan Duvigneau
• Note: the attributes do not have to be
delivered in a linear way, the trainer may
create an activity that is mainly focused on
evaluation but do this in an engaging way,
where learners are asked to explore a solution
and explain to the group the reasons why they
solved the problem in a particular way. They
will go on to elaborate their reasons when
other questions probe or ask questions.
• The participants in the slide were asked to
complete a task as a group, they are all
engaged, while some are taking the lead and
elaborating or explaining the task, everyone is
learning through exploration. At the end of the
task the group will evaluate their overall
success at completing the task gaols.
• Introduce Bruner's five E's and ask
participants if they have heard of these before
Slide 13
Engage
State Library, NSW, Flickr
(1 mins)
• Your training sessions will be more
successful if you participants are
engaged in the learning process. This
could be achieved through asking them
to negotiate their learning goals, keeping
the right pace, welcoming questions and
ideas¸ developing activities that
encourage participants to co-construct
knowledge and making sure you have
plenty opportunities for reflection.
• Show the slide
Slide 14
Explore
(1 mins)
• Being actively involved in learning will
drive the learning process. This can be
achieved through individual, pair or
group work and be driven through the
process of enquiry (or exploration)
• Show the slide
David Hiser, Flickr
Slide 15
Explain
Spencer P. Lane, Wikimedia
Slide 16
Elaborate
Jurgen Rosskamp, Wikimedia
(1 mins)
• Explanations come from participants
learning together. Before introducing new
concepts and vocabulary, the trainer can
establish what is already known by asking the
participant to explain what they know.
• In this slide we see a student explaining her
approach to multiplying fractions while her
teacher writes down her approach behind her.
• Highlight the ways you can learn through
activities that encourage the learner to explain
new concepts.
(1 mins)
• It is essential that participants expand on the
concepts they have learned so that the trainer
can establish whether there are any gaps in
their knowledge. Also, through elaboration the
learner can apply the new knowledge to their
own environment and real world problems. By
making connections they will also be able to
create new understandings, which may lead to
further inquiry.
• Show the slide.
Slide 17
Evaluate
US Navy, Wikimedia
Slide 18
Social constructivism is...
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Slide 19
Active not passive learning
Promotes critical thinking skills
Trainer not a record player, but a facilitator
Learning through experience and in social
settings (groups)
Learners placed at ‘centre’ of learning
Co-construction of knowledge
Draws on past experiences (reflective)
Learning incremental (‘scaffolding’)
Task
(1 mins)
• Evaluation can occur through-out the
learning process, We'll talk more about this
later in the course but for now it is enough to
say that evaluation helps the learner measure
their learning progress and identify areas
where they still need to improve. In an activity,
evaluation plays a role too and promotes
higher-order thinking skills.
• Show the slide.
(1 mins)
• In summary, constructivism is about active
learning through enquiry where the trainer
acts as a facilitator (rather than a lecturer).
Learning should engage the participant and
promote problem-solving and critical thinking
skills.
It should encourage the participant to build on
what is already known (scaffolding) and fill the
gaps in their knowledge.
• Summarise the key characteristics of this
learning theory.
BEFORE YOU COMMENCE THE NEXT ACTIVITY,
TAKE A REFRESHMENT BREAK FOR 30 MINS
Slide 19-20 (50 mins)
• Introduce the constructivist activity (see
next slide). The aim of the activity is to get
participants to begin to build confidence in
creating a learner-centred training activity
Slide 20
Social Constructivist Task
Trainer A is planning to teach a group of 30
students about health literacy. They have
planned a 30 minute training session which
consists of two 15 minute presentations. The
first presentation defines health literacy, the
second presentation shows students were to
find resources on the internet.
The training approach is very teacher-centred.
Slide 20 – 21
Show the participant’s the brief and walk
through the task
• Group the participants into small break-out
groups of 5-6 people.
Participants can use a laptop for this task and
must create a short presentation (5 mins) to
feedback their findings to the group.
Give the participants 30 mins preparation time
to complete their research.
• Give participants time to reflect on how this
approach could apply in larger groups (e.g.
getting students to work as a group on a
bench, setting thought provoking questions at
the start of a lecture etc).
•
Slide 21
Social Constructivist Task
In groups, discuss how the trainer could
incorporate social learning activities into their
plan:
• Create two constructivist learning activities:
e.g. build on prior knowledge, learning in
groups
• Discuss how the trainer can apply this
approach to a session with 100 students
(20 minutes)
•
•
•
•
The participants must create two learnercentred / social learning activities for
Trainer A’s health literacy class.
They must also suggest how these
approaches could be applied to groups
larger than 100 students.
Walk around the room and help
individuals think about the social aspects
of learning. Each group should write a
summary of their activity on a flip chart.
After 30 minutes, invite a representative
from each group to feedback one of their
learning activities. Put the others up (i.e.
flipcharts) on the wall for others to look at
during break times. .
Spend about 10 minutes feeding back,
and if you run out of time remind
individuals to look at the flipcharts during
break.
Slide 22
(1 mins)
• Constructivist theory is like building a house,
it builds on our foundation of knowledge;
creates links to what is known, and coconstructs knowledge in an engaging and
social way
• Review the learning outcomes
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session, you will:
• Understand the basic tenants of constructivism &
experiential learning
• Recognise that constructivism advocates a
learner-centred approach
• Begin to feel more confident in participatory
learning processes
Slide 23
Course materials developed by Siobhan
Duvigneau
Information Literacy manager, IDS
S.Duvigneau@ids.ac.uk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
15/11/2013
23
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