10 Integration of Information and Communication Technology Aided Constructivist Learning approach in Education: Realizing the Dream

Bharati Ganiger and Devraj Goel

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.      Introduction

2.       Issues

3.      Concerns

4.      Conclusion

1.     Introduction:

Information communication technology (ICT) learning environment provides students with swift access to new information. Its reasonable application can make teaching more diversified, flexible, and effective; It facilitates Problem solving and offer learning tools which can develop critical thinking among learners. New information technologies, and particularly the Internet, is dramatically transforming access to information, are changing the learning and research process, how we search, discover, teach and learn. Lev Vygotsky said that through others we become ourselves, the statement emphasizes the importance of social interaction with people which enhances the leaning. Constructivism is one of the most influential theories in contemporary education and learning theory. It has had great influence in science education. Von Glasersfeld describes constructivism as a “theory of knowledge with roots in philosophy, psychology and cybernetics” Knowledge is not a transferable commodity and communication not a conveyance. E. Von Glasersfeld (1987), Constructivism does not claim to have made earth-shaking inventions in the area of education; it merely claims to provide a solid conceptual basis for some of the things that, until now, inspired teachers had to do without theoretical foundation.

Constructivism suggests that the learner’s understandings of the way the worlds’ work is the result of one’s own active construction rather than someone else’s presentation. Constructivist believes that knowledge is the result of individual constructions of reality (Brooks, 1990). Constructivism is meaning making activity and produces active learners and creative thinkers. But now there is a widespread concern that the educational experiences provided in many schools are not preparing students well for the future. It is believed that creating a paradigm shift in view of learning process, coupled with the application of digital technology may play an important role in bringing educational systems into alignment with the emerging knowledge based information rich and technologically advanced society. ICT offers wide array for building new schooling systems that allows long distance exchange and interaction between geographically spread groups of teachers and their students meeting this challenge, in turn requires collaboration across national, cultural, and institutional boundaries. And among groups and individuals who have been isolated.

With their increasingly ubiquitous presence within and outside the school, the Information and Communication Technology have begun to challenge what schools try to teach and the whole basis of assessing the knowledge and skills that students acquire. The process of education can no longer ignore the social and psychological impacts of the technology that structures the information and the possibilities that the global information sharing opens up, furthermore these technologies affect the way people think and learn has been widely recognized. Integration of ICT in schools therefore has a strong rationale and is natural sequence in the evolution of the schooling process. (NCF, 2000). It is only with new skills and perceptions that the teacher can assume her/his new role as a facilitator of learning and implement and maintain innovations in classroom. This call for a new definition of pre-service courses and effective training and orientation programmes for teachers, the new courses should help them to acquire skill of using ICT as well as making the best use of Computer technology in curriculum transaction. (NCF, 2000).

2.     Issues

There are volumes of writings and epistemological foundations on Techno-Constructivism, theoretically it has sound philosophy, roots and stems but till it needs to blossom & bloom through practices and research. It is evident at the lab level that the ICT Aided Constructivism is significantly effective, yet it needs a grass root theory for practical utility at the operational level. Practically implementing the Information and Communication Technology Aided constructivist Learning Approach in the classroom setting has several issues:

• In the Indian Context the Classroom environment is not conducive to the implementation of the ICTACLA. As the class size is big, managing the learning would be difficult through constructivist approach and even through ICTACLA.
• Lack of trained teachers in the area of ICTACLA
• Lack of trained teacher educators in the area of learning through ICTACLA
• Lack of trained administrators in the area of ICTACLA
• Lack of minimum facilities of Information and Communication Technology.
• Rigid disciplined classroom setting including infrastructure, sitting arrangement, disrespecting the independency of the learners
• The philosophy of learning of the people including learners, teachers, administrators, parents and the whole society coming under education sector is still static. It needs transformation.
• Less availability of educational software which facilitates positive learning.
• Development of the fully functional software by the learners and teachers demands thorough training.
• Constructivism seems to pass the onus of creating the knowledge to the student. It is highly desirable, but, relatively challenging.
• It is preposterous to expect every student to be another Darwin, Newton and Einstein. Tobias (1991), but it is highly timely having faith in the learners to be the discoverers of their own learning and creator of the meaning of learning.

3.     Concerns

To prevent constructivism from turning into a crudely relativistic form of construction-ism, which is likely to offend on psychological, ethical and political grounds, we need to ensure that the fruits of students’ constructs are linked, appropriately, to that which qualifies as genuine knowledge from the perspectives of experts within the ‘‘real- world’’ disciplines. (Splitter, 2008) According to Biggs (1993), students come to any learning situation with knowledge about learning, as well as prior knowledge in t he content area, beliefs, abilities, motivations and personality traits as personal presage factors. These personal characteristics interact with the learning environment to produce a context-specific motivation to engage in a particular learning experience. This means that students read the learning environment, particularly the assessment requirements, and subsequently choose a strategy that parallels the learning motive for that particular context. So learning context should be set according to all the beliefs, abilities and motivations of the learners.

Not all learning materials should be considered as instructional materials. While many learning systems do not adhere to the values or traditions of instructional design, they are seldom differentiated accordingly. Constructivist approaches, for example, e mphasize different kinds of learning, feature different kinds of methods, and are rooted in different epistemological frameworks. If we seek systems that support other kinds of learning, then we need to better differentiate methods according to their consistency with various perspectives. For constructivist learning environments, it is important to understand how the core epistemological beliefs can be reconciled with, or necessarily depart from, other design practices.

Some Prominent Paradigm Shifts needed in education to implement ICTACLA are,

Reproductive Learning to Productive Learning

Learners’ achievements were measured against their ability to reproduce subject content, in other words, how well they could memorize and reproduce the content that the teacher transferred to them. With the emphasis on productive learning, it is rather about the application of knowledge and skills, in other words, what the learners can do after completing the learning process. Achievement is measured against the productive contribution a learner can make, instead of what the learner can reproduce.

Teacher-centered to  learner-centered

The educational activities strongly focused on preferences and teaching style of the teacher that which would work best for the teacher, determined the design of the learning environment and the nature of leaning activities. From all these the preferences should shift to learner-centered learning. The learning environment should be designed according to the needs and possibilities of particular learner group.

Teaching to  Learning facilitation

Teaching as an activity of the teacher is seen as an activity that relates to the transfer of content within a teaching-centered education paradigm. From this didactic environment to learning facilitation follows a learning-centered education paradigm should be followed. Teachers cannot be regarded as the only source of knowledge and cannot focus on the transfer of content method any longer. They need to focus on the facilitation of learning. Teachers cannot be considered as the fountainhead of information since the technology can provide students with access to an infinite amount of array of data and information. The role of instructor, therefore changes to learning facilitator. The instructor facilitates the environment so that the learner can access, synthesize and interpret it and draw the meaning out of it.

Content-based to outcome-based

The emphasis from content based teaching- learning to outcome based that is reaching the prior set learning objectives meaningfully after the learning process.

Product oriented to Process oriented

In constructivist learning approach the process is considered as the heart of the learning, the emphasis is much on the process of learning that how we learn instead of what we learn. How the learners come to conclusion, how they relate the concepts to the prior concepts, and scaffold the relationships between the ideas and finally how they draw the meaning important rather scoring high on achievement test which would be held at the end of the session.

Content –based evaluation to outcome-based assessment

Here rather than highlighting on the evaluation of what content has been in the syllabus, teachers should assess outcome through transformation in terms of skills and applications, along with knowledge and understanding.

Knowledge production to knowledge configuration

As there is fast development in the field of ICT, increasing amount of information is available and accessible from all parts of the world. The days when information and knowledge were limited to libraries, books and experts are over. Knowledge production is making room for so called Knowledge configuration. Gibbons (1998) says in this context that “educational institutions greatly emphasized the generation of content for learning programmes in the past, the storage and re- use of content will become more important. The generating of certain content might possibly not even happen at or through the institution itself, but elsewhere. The educational institution could possibly, in such a case, give attention to the evaluation, processing and packaging of the content. Over 90% of the k nowledge produced globally is not produced where its use is required. The challenge is how to get knowledge that might have been produced anywhere in the world to the place where it can be used effectively in a particularly problem-solving context”.

• These paradigm shifts in education have contributed to ever growing need to innovate our educational practice and to explore new learning paradigms like ICT Aided Constructivist Learning Approach.
• The real classroom setting should be made favorable to implement ICTACLA.
• Maintain a buffer between the learner and potentially damaging effects of instructional practices.
• Emphasize the affective domain also, and make instruction relevant to the learner.
• Help learners develop attitudes and beliefs that support both present learning and lifelong learning.
• Balance teacher-control with personal autonomy in the learning environment.
• Provide contexts for both autonomous learning and learning within relationships among students, such as, Group Discussion, Projection, Collaboration, as well as, Independent Construction.
• Provide reasons for learning within the learning activities themselves. Have students identify relevance and purpose.
• Promote and make conscious the skills and attitudes that enable a learner to assume responsibility for his/her cognitive and developmental processes.
• Use the strategic exploration of errors to strengthen the learner involvement with intentional learning processes and self- feedback.
• There should be availability of ICT facilities and creation of online community.
• Innovations in learning that we should expect are focused on personalized and adaptive learning, dynamic monitoring systems and integrating experience based learning into the classroom.
• Research should be done rigorously on constructivist learning approach and ICT enhanced constructivist learning approach.

4.     Conclusion:

“In order for any discipline to survive, it must accommodate changes in theory and practice and do so in a way that adds value to the discipline” (Kuhn, 1972). The constructivist view of the world gives new status to the learner as active agent of learning. Constructivist pedagogy offers a bold departure from traditional classroom strategies. The goal is for the learner to plan an active role in assimilating knowledge into one’s existing cognitive structure. The constructivist approach requires the teacher to relinquish one’s role as sole information–dispenser and instead to continually analyze one’s curriculum planning and instructional methodologies. At the same time there are various new demands on the part of teachers. Constructivism is a culture – not a fragmented collection of practices. Crafting instruction based on constructivism is not as straightforward as it seems. It could be developed as a culture of the class. New insights don’t happen by osmosis. They come from facing ideas that challenge the familiar ways of viewing issues – Earls & Katz (2002). Constructivism must be an extension of not a replacement for high quality curriculum. Out of all the difficulties to implement the ICT Aided Constructivist Learning Approach in the real class settings, there is ray of rhythm reflecting that one day this approach would find its grounded design, and it will be possible to implement it successfully in the real classroom setting & environment.

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