I like the general concepts of social constructionism as presented by this link. The idea of having students work together to construct knowledge is very appealing as it is a skill and strength that students and learners at large will need in the global market. our world is progressively becoming "smaller and smaller" as technology gets better and better at connecting human beings. Students need the skills of collaboration and team work to be able to succeed in this world. As a teacher I feel that project based learning, inquiry, and group work all support the social constructionism approach to learning. By providing structured space for students to share their realities, explore their "zone of proximal development", and allow for one person to be the "more knowledgable other" students will be engaging in social constructionism as described by Dr. Michael Orey (2001).
Web 2.0 products like wiki's help students to share their knowledge more efficiently and to create a jointly produced external artifact that can be discussed and processed by the group at large. These are all great strategies to be used with students to increase engagement and enhance the social network of learning.
One draw back of these approaches is the lack of accountability. Unless all the students have created a common reality that everyone has their own strengths and they actively seek those out, some students will be viewed as less important and will not be able to become the "more knowledgable other" in a lot of circumstances. In this case the type of projects or artifacts produced are dependent on the classroom community and how learning is collectively approached.
Another draw back is the lack of individual assessment. In this model is it assumed that if groups are working on a product that all students are sharing, engaging and learning from one another. Thus assessing the group would equal assessing each individual separately. This is very challenging for me as a teacher to embrace as a sole approach to learning. Only using groups does not allow for full mastery of all topics presented. I feel that it assumes that some information will be absorbed by some members of the group and it is ok if they other rely on that person for this information.
In today's assessment driven classroom this is not an acceptable assumption or approach. Every student is treated as an individual and not simply a part of a larger social community/reality. Thus our teaching needs to reflect this and ensure that, while teaching sometimes in the social constructionism model is good, we are ensuring that EVERY one in the classroom is learning ALL information.
In this way I like the ideal of Social constructionism being used either at the beginning of a unit as an engagement and semi assessment or at the end as an extension beyond the base required knowledge has already been gained by ALL students.
M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved Feb 2nd 2011, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
“Social Learning Theories” Dr. Michael Orey, Laurete Education
__
Above in the post I mentioned something about the importance of students collectively deciding its important to acknowledge that everyone has strengths and something to contribute to the over all community. I have currently been struggling with one class that I teach where the students have steadily degraded to a view that no one is knowledgable enough to succeed. Because of this view point the are breaking each other down for any attempt to succeed instead of supporting and encouraging success in learning and sharing. Please check out my voice thread about this topic and comment/ reflect on some strategies of how to approach this problem. Thanks! http://voicethread.com/share/1703820/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree that there can be a real lack of accountability and individual responsibility. I have used group project peer evaluation forms. This allows all students to let me know if they feel that another did not contribute or pull their weight on the project. This seems to help the weaker link know that he is being watched and his contributions are noted. On the other end of this evaluation is a personal responsibility report card in which each students self reflects on their own contribution and gives themselves a grade.
ReplyDeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the more knowledgeable person in the group. It is a concern that I struggle with too. The learners expect when they are in these groups that everyone contributes. This does not always occur. After reading the literature from this week, I thought about one of my students who will be transitioned into a learning handicap classroom next year. I decided to read to her the brief material the group was going to comment on. Afterwards, she was able to act as a contributing member of the group. I know we cannot always intervene this way, but maybe there is a way the balance the group expectations.
Jonah
I am for and also against cooperative learning. I like how it helps students to share their ideas and work together with others. I am a kindergarten teacher and some of my students will share with their peers things that they wouldn't share with me. Many times I have seen where they can take constructive criticism from a classmate easier than they can take it from me. Being against cooperative learning doesn't mean that I don't use it, I just use it sparingly. Also, I don't assign strict tasks and grade accordingly because of my age group, but accountability is a major part of cooperative learning. There are always going to be those students who slack off and those who do all of the work. I know as a parent, I wouldn't want my child's grade dependent on another's work. I believe I would use Dr. Orey's Hemingway example and and each person would have a specific task in the group. That person would then work together with the students who are assigned the same task from the other groups. That way, if that particular task/assignment is missing from a group's work, there is only one person to blame.
ReplyDeleteI think we all share similiar viewpoints on how it can be hard to assess when students have been working as a group. As many rules as we set up about how each student should be involved and active learners, there are still students who will sit back and let the others do the work. I find that having students work together on a product can be very valuable for students expanding their own knowledge. However I still find that after the project or product is completed I have to come up with a separate assessment for the students to complete individually. To me this seems like sometimes I doing double the work because of the demands from administration. They want a certain amount of assessments in the gradebook for each subject. It can be frustrating to spend so much time on a project using social constructionism only to find that you still have to go back after that and create assessments to fit what they should have learned throughout the project. Also, if we are allowing students to create and build their own knowledge they all aren't learning the same things. That makes it difficult to hit on everything that they have learned through an assessment. I do enjoy social constructionism and love to see it working in my classroom, but there are negative aspects as well. -Nellie Murison
ReplyDelete@Suzi
ReplyDeleteGroup evaluations and peer critique is a great way to keep everyone accountable. Sometimes though I struggle with students being spiteful of those they don't like or giving undeservedly high grades to their friends. I like the idea of personal reflection. If I can start the project off with the class setting expectations of themselves and each other maybe they will have more ownership of their actions and be more honest in their reflections.
@Jonah
I think specifically supporting students in becoming experts in a topic area or supporting them with what they will be expected to do before a task begins is extremely important. Thank you for the anecdote as it helps to be reminded that some students do need this type of support.
@Rachel
Group jobs/responsibilities lines up pretty perfectly with Orey's description of Social Constructionism. If each person has a job according to their strength they become the more knowledgeable other and can support the group from within their strength. It also helps when evaluating the group as a whole to be able to break the product down into parts.
@Nellie
I wonder if you can have the students identify within the project what evidence they have of meeting standards. Lets say you have a standard of knowing the parts of a cell. And you need evidence that each student knows and understands that. Could you potentially give them a list of standards (this one included) and have them record where in their project is shows they understand this and why that part works for this standard. This might push the metacognitive level of the students to a new level and provide you with concrete evidence that the students a) understand what they are learning b) are self reflective and c) can talk about their learning.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteIt is a common struggle for educators to hold all students accountable in cooperative learning situations. I find that if I make the lesson something that the students can relate to they will be more involved and less likely to slack off and let other group members do all the work. there is no perfect answer for how to motivate students but I believe that they must be intrinsically motivated and take ownership for their own education before we as educators can truly hold them to higher standards. What are some recommendations for holding all students accountable in cooperative learning environments?