Week 4 Digital and collaborative

Flipped task 

A google slide of the differences between constructionism and constructivism

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is a learning process that brings learners together (including the teacher) and enables students to be responsible for their own learning as well as the learning of their peers. Collaborative learning is aimed at having students fully appreciate the process of building knowledge together and improving learning outcomes by collective knowledge and collective capability. We might link these ideas with the concept of kotahitanga, as outlined in this week's in class video from Trevor Moeke

In the flipped preparation discussion this week we will be looking at how collaboration links with the learning theories of constructivism and constructionism. A learning theory is about changes in observable behaviour. It addresses: how such changes become relatively permanent, whether the change is immediate or potential, what role experience plays, and what aspects of reinforcement are present (Olsen & Hergenhahn, 2013).

These top ten learning theories are particularly relevant to digital and collaborative learning

1. Conditioning
2. Connectionism and the Law of Effect
3. Progressive Education
4. Constructivism: Social Development Theory
5. Constructivism: Equilibration
6. Social Cognitive Theory
7. Situated Learning / Cognition
8. Community of Practice
9. Constructionism
10. Connectivism

Constructionism

Constructionism argues that collaborative learning is particularly effective in environments where learners are required to actually produce what Seymour Papert refers to as a 'social product' - and this may be anything from a robot to a computer game or even a mathematical theory.

Papert & Harel (1991) state that constructionism is the idea of learning-by-making and that these activities display qualities of "learning-richness":

"The simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making... I do not believe that anyone fully understands what gives these activities their quality of "learning-richness." But this does not prevent one from taking them as models in benefiting from the presence of new technologies to expand the scope of activities with that quality." Papert & Harel (1991)

Constructivism

Constructivism is based on a type of learning in which the learner forms, or constructs, much of what he or she learns or comprehends (Cashman et al., 2005). This means that knowledge is constructed, and transformed by students. The learning process is something a learner does by either activating already existing cognitive structures, or by constructing new ones that accommodate the new input. Learners do not passively receive knowledge from the teacher; teaching becomes a transaction between all the stakeholders in the learning process. One of the ideas associated with constructivism is Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (what the learner can do with the guidance of a knowledgeable other).

Liu and Matthews (2005) put constructivism in its historical context, contrasting it with earlier behaviourist and cognitivist theories; "knowledge is not mechanically acquired, but actively constructed within the constraints and offerings of the learning environment… The mechanistic positivist accounts of learners as recipients of hard-wired knowledge were supplanted by accounts of learners as situated, active knowledge constructors.”

Scratch

The first activity of this session will be using Scratch, a visual programming tool with Makey Makey kits to make a musical instrument.

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, and it helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. With Scratch you can program your own stories, games and animations and share and use other projects on the online library. When combined with a Makey Makey it can be used to respond to external events to create interactive programs. Makey Makey is an electronic circuit board that allows users to connect everyday objects to computer programs that respond to events.

After the activity, we will reflect on how constructionist and constructivist theories apply to this type of learning.

Some other ways in which Makey Makeys can be used are:

• Building scientific instruments
• Flight simulators
• Power motors
• Lighting LED's
• Rain gauge
• Home security system
• Selfie switch
• Bringing code to life.

These ideas are described in the video on the portal: Makey Makey: An invention kit for everyone.

Also see Microbit http://microbit.org/

Cooperation and Collaboration

One area of debate in education is the difference (or similarity) between cooperation and collaboration. To begin our discussion this week we ask you to answer the PollDaddy question at poll.fm/5zccy to share your own viewpoint on collaboration and cooperation

In his book chapter, 'What do you mean by collaborative learning'. Pierre Dillenbourg suggests that it is not easy to define what we mean by collaborative learning, since there are many different opinions. “This book arises from a series of workshops on collaborative learning, that gathered together 20 scholars from the disciplines of psychology, education and computer science… The reader will not be surprised to learn that our group did not agree on any definition of collaborative learning. We did not even try. There is such a wide variety of uses of this term.”

This, however, is not very helpful to teachers who are required by 'Our Code, Our Standards'  to “Teach in ways that enable learners to learn from one another, to collaborate, to self-regulate and to develop agency over their learning.” (Education Council, 2017).

Fortunately there are some ideas in the literature that can help us to define what collaborative learning means. Kozar (2010) uses the analogy of a pot luck dinner to compare cooperation and collaboration. In a potluck dinner, people cook and bring different dishes to the table. Had they cooked together they would have learned a lot more from one another; they would have taken away some practical, hands-on skills even if cooking together had meant a messier and a more chaotic process. In the cooperative process, guests return back to their homes being able to cook only the same dish they brought. In collaboration, guests cook together to  gain new knowledge or experience from the interaction.

A few other ideas about what defines collaborative learning include

• Shifting the responsibility for learning to the student (Panitz, 1999).
• For non-foundational knowledge (picks up where cooperative learning leaves off) (Bruffee, 1995).
• A social contract (instructions, settings, constraints) (Dillenbourg, 1999).
• Horizontal not vertical division of labour (reasoning layers, not subtasks) (Dillenbourg, 1999).
• Interdependent, with shared responsibility to make substantive decisions together (ITL Research, 2012)