Gagnon & Collay Constructivist Model

Constructivist's Joke: Gagnon & Collay say that when you ask a bunch of educators what they think is meant by constructivist learning they all come up with something different — they "bring prior knowledge and experience to the text and make their own meaning".

Constructivist learning theory is especially relevant to Moodle course design because Martin Dougiamas built his Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment guided specifically by "social constructionist pedagogy" (moodle.org).

G&C, "propose a new approach for planning using a 'Constructivist Learning Design'... [it] emphasizes these six important elements: Situation, Groupings, Bridge, Questions, Exhibit, and Reflections." G&C's 1996 paper is important because it gives us a constructivist design framework. We can feed straight into this framework when we're wondering how to start on a new Moodle course design.

Note: In Gagnon & Collay (2001) Designing for Learning only six elements (above) are discussed. But in their 2006 book Constructivist Learning Design they have introduced a seventh element— "Task". Retrospectively, it seems obvious that a task was needed, but maybe originally that was seen as embodied in the exhibit?

Situation

Set up a scenario, a role play that feels authentic to the students. Maintain this scenario for the duration of the learning episode.

Note: That last sentence seems to define the duration of each G & C learning episode to at most one of the eight weeks. Maybe to just one "lesson". Maybe to just one "learning object". It seems hard to imagine maintaining a single role play for longer. Perhaps six different role plays with a common theme, spread across the eight weeks?

There are many Moodle resources and activities you could use to situate the students. I would probably go 'Compose a web page' and write a one paragraph case study. Or I could set up a 'Lesson' where the first screen set the scene { "Cast yourself in the role of a ..." } and subsequent screens posed Socratic questions { "In this role what forces are acting upon you?" } and { "In this role how will you respond to challenge A? "}. Done with a modicum of skill, the students will soon find themselves immersed in your virtual learning environment.

Groupings

The Moodle 'Choice' activity is perfect for getting the students to assign themselves to groups. Manipulate the settings such that there are only the right number of places in each group. The early birds get to choose, the latecomers must take what's left. For example, the three groups might be: Designers, Engineers, and Testers.

G & C talk about grouping students, materials and furniture, and this is the idea of "workstation" that has become quite common in contemporary offline classroom sessions. They also talk about the groupings being dynamic... sometimes a dyad (as in a pair programming exercise for example) and sometimes more, and sometimes the whole class should be seen in terms of a group too — the wider group.

In a Moodle context I think you create groups and groupings of the students, and you perhaps assign the groups different tasks before bringing them back together in, say, a forum. In the branching of a Lesson you can expose the students to different groups of materials too, and this will stimulate discussion because, like the blind men around an elephant, each group will have a different idea of exactly what the topic is. Here an opportunity for Fleming's VARK presents itself: Deliver the Lesson down four branches; set up four different sets of materials, visual, aural, read/write, and kinesthetic.

Bridge

It is said that you can only learn what you almost already know. You must build a bridge between the pre-knowledge and the learning objective.

Task

G & C introduced a seventh element, the Task. Retrospectively, it seems obvious. Stike a balance between challenging, yet attainable. In an online course of just eight weeks part-time there is not the time to have the task not at least contribute, if not culminate, in the exhibit.

Exhibit

This is where there is a subtle shift from constructivism to constructionism. Constructivism is purely cognitive, constructionism is both cognitive and kinesthetic; it's Papert, Resnick, Logo, Lego Mindstorms and it's Shneiderman's 'Donate' phase. If your budget allows it, then let the engineers build a solar car, let the social studies people make a video about life along the cordon. If your budget or your schedule or your pure-online-ness do not allow, then Moodle has the 'Wiki' and the 'Database' and the 'Glossary' activities — get creative with them.

Reflections

I like using the built-in 'Blog' for this and, thankfully, in Moodle 2.0 there will be the ability to comment on posts (a serious omission in 1.n). You could use 'Assignments: Upload a single file' if you're going to assign marks to this final phase. It's a learning designer's choice: assess the exhibit, or assess the reflection, or assess both. I prefer to assign marks to the Exhibit and to leave the reflection as a personal thing, but that's just me.

Have we come a long way with this, or have we come a long way? I mean... 90% of the people I work with stick up a PDF and set a multichoice quiz, unless I twist their arm to do more. By following Gagnon and Collay's model we have: situated the learner; got the learner to select their own study group (which made them position themselves and consider their approach); built a bridge between the pre-requisites and the learning objectives; got the instructor leading with questions (which is fundamental to teaching, first established 470 years before Christ); got the learners to make something as a way of expressing their new found knowledge; got the learners to show their exhibit at the very least to their instructor and classmates if not to a wider audience and so solicit feedback; and finally we have them reflecting on what they have done. Gagnon and Collay made it easy for us. We hardly even had to think.

Implementing G & C in Moodle

I call this the Gagnon and Collay network model and implements neatly as a lesson in Moodle.