Some Examples of Constructivist Approaches to the Educational Use of Computers.

Perkins, D.N. 1991. Technology Meets Constructivism: Do They Make a Marriage? Educational Technology, May, 18-23. Perkins (1991, 18) claims that the goals of education are deceptively simply. He states that, among other goals, education "strives for the retention, understanding, and active use of knowledge and skills". The purpose for teaching material is for it to be retained by students, and unless it is understood, it cannot be used, and there is no point in teaching knowledge and skills if they are not going to be put into active use by students in their life. He claims, however, that these simple sounding goals of education have been found to be extremely difficult to achieve with research continually demonstrating gaps in knowledge, and lack of understanding of children in a variety of subject areas. While there are many problems to be confronted, there are also some positive developments; two of these are the development of information technology and "the diversity of educational practices surrounding the idea of 'constructivism' " (Perkins 1991, 18). In considering the impact of information technology and constructivism on education, Perkins (1991, 18) identifies "five facets of a learning environment" which he calls Information Banks, Symbol Pads, Construction Kits, Phenomenaria and Task Managers. Not all of these are to be found in every learning environment and, in fact, the different instructional methodologies will change the balance between them.

Information Banks

Perkins describes Information Banks as being "any resource that, more than anything else, serves as a source of explicit information about topics" (1991, 18). Examples of these include text books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias and the teacher. Information technology will expand the range of information and the speed at which it can be accessed.

Symbol Pads

Perkins states that "A basic function of educational environments for a long time has been to provide surfaces for the construction and manipulation of symbols" and, as examples of them lists such things as the hand-held slate, the student's notebook and even the laptop computer, all of which help support the short term memory of students as they "record ideas, develop outlines, formulate and manipulate equations, and so on". According to Perkins, technology can expand the power of symbol pads with the use of such things as word processors and graphics packages (1991, 18-19).

Construction Kits

Construction kits are common parts of the educational environment both at school and in the home with such things as Lego and erector sets being examples. In the school situation, laboratory equipment, for example, is construction kits used in the sciences for experiments. Perkins argues that the advent of information technology has extended the use of construction kits to incorporate abstract ideas such as computer programming and the use of simulations (1991, 19)

Phenomenaria

A phenomenaria is an "area for the specific purpose of presenting phenomena and making them accessible to scrutiny and manipulation". Examples of these include experimental apparatus and simuation games. Information process technology greatly extends the range of such phenomenaria (Perkins 1991, 19).

Task Managers

Task managers "are elements of the environment that set tasks to be undertaken in the course of learning, guide and sometimes help with the execution of those tasks, and provide feedback regarding process and/or product". The classical task manager is, of course, the teacher, but the text book can often perform part of this task with its end of chapter exercises, etc.. Task management can also be a part of computer based instructional materials (Perkins 1991, 19).

Minimalist and Richer Learning Environments

As was noted earlier, not all learning environments have all five of these facets of a learning environment. Perkins describes their use in a "typical somewhat dry environment of ordinary classroom environment" as principally featuring "information banks (the teacher, the text), symbol pads (notebooks, scratch paper, worksheets), and task managers (the teacher, written instructions)" (1991, 19). He argues that a number of premises can be formed from this profile, for example: that learning occurs through telling students about things (information banks rather than phenomenaria); that students cannot manage much of their own learning (little task management left to them); and that working out problems rather than constructing entities is primary (symbol pads rather than construction kits) (1991, 19). Perkins claims that "more progressive learning environments" concentrate more on phenomenaria and construction kits with Logo being an example of instruction centred on construction kits and environments for science teaching highlighting phenomenaria. When using these, students bear more responsibility for their own task management and the "role of the teacher shifts to something more like that of a coach" (1991, 20).

Constructivist Offering

Perkins argues that: Constructivism has multiple roots in the psychology and philosophy of this century: the developmental perspective of Jean Piaget, the emergence of cognitive psychology under the guidance of such figures of Jerome Bruner and Ulrick Neisser, the constructivist perspective of philosophers such as Nelson Goodman. Central to the vision of constructivism is the notion of the organism as "active" - not just responding to stimuli, as in the behaviourist rubric, but engaging, grappling, and seeking to make sense of things (1991, 20). Learners do not simply take in and store information. They attempt to interpret their experiences and build on and test those interpretations. Even when the learning task is simple, like learning a name, "constructive processes operate: Candidate mental structures are formed, elaborated, and tested, until a satisfactory structure emerges" (Perkins 1991, 20). Perkins argues that if learning has a constructive character, then teaching practice must recognise this and that the main criticism that constructivists make of current teaching practice is that it is not especially supportive of the construction process which has to be undertaken by learners (Perkins 1991, 20).

BIG versus WIG Constructivism

Perkins (1991, 20) maintains that nearly all educators and psychologists are constructivists of some type, but the question is how constructive should they be. He describes two types of constructivism, BIG (beyond the information given) and WIG (without the information given). If a BIG approach is being taken, Perkins suggests that the basics of the problem would be introduced and the learners would then be allowed to work through their understanding of it in a variety of ways. They would also be given "a number of thought-oriented activities that challenged them to apply and generalise their initial understandings, refining them along the way" (Perkins 1991, 20). On the other hand, with a WIG approach the "official" concept would not be stated (or only "late in the game"). Instead, the learners might work with phenomena so that they could investigate the problem: They would be encouraged to try to explain such phenomena with their intuative notions ... Anomolies would emerge. To make sense of these anomalies, the learners would be encouraged to devise better models of what was occurring. The teacher would scaffold this process, heavily if necessary, but without directly providing answers (Perkins 1991, 20). In this approach, while a lot of information is available from the phenomena and the help provided by the teacher, direct information is withheld. Perkins (1991, 20) states that there is considerable debate on this issue: Advocates of WIG constructivism urge that concepts are not truly and meaningfully learned in ways that empower learners unless those concepts are in good part rediscovered by the learners. Advocates of BIG constructivism urge that one can generally quite straightforwardly teach concepts, providing the overall instructional experience includes ample occasion for students to function generatively in testing and extending their evolving conceptions. While Perkins (1991, 20-21) states that he does not wish to pursue this debate further, he does express his personal view: ... let me say that education without any WIG episodes would rarely let students engage in and learn about processes of discovery and idea construction. However, education given over entirely to WIG constructivism would prove grossly inefficient and ineffective, failing to pass on in straightforward ways the achievements of the past.

Technology Meets Constructivism

Information processing technologies have given rise to the concept of the mind as an information processor. From the constructivist perspective, Perkins (1991, 21) argues, that this "information processor must be seen not as just shuffling data, but wielding it flexibly during learning - making hypotheses, testing tentative interpretations, and so on". Perkins (1991, 21) considers the concrete impact of this theory on instructional design. He states that from the constructivist point of view: Understanding is not something that comes free with full databanks and through practice; it is something won by the struggles of the organism to learn - to conjecture, probe, puzzle out, forecast, and so on. Likewise, ready recall of information and smooth execution of procedures do not guarantee active use of knowledge and skills, as the learner later in life strives to cope creatively with new situations. On the contrary, there is considerable risk that a drill-and-practice regimen may yield knowledge and skills more "contextually welded" to very particular circumstances, less labile, less easily transferred (Perkins 1991, 21). He summarises this by stating that "understanding and active use become central goals of instruction to be pursued with particular care rather than taken for granted". One implication that Perkins (1991, 21) see is in task analysis. In 'traditional' task analysis, great stress may be placed on the retention of a piece of knowledge and the smooth exectution of skills. From a constructivist point of view, however, tasks that display understanding should be included and the sub-tasks should, for example, involve "explanation, extrapolation, evidence giving, and the like". These Perkins suggests, can be called "understanding performances". Another implication is that "caution should be observed in partitioning off overly narrow kinds of performances". Any "focussed attention ... should be part of some larger enterprise transparent not just to the teacher but to the learner" as the learner is "engaged in sense making" and Perkins asks "how much sense is the learner likely to be able to make of performances stripped of contexts that give them meaning?" (1991, 21). A constructivist view brings with it a very different conception of the task that learners should undertake as they learn. It also brings a different perspective to the way in which the five facets of the learning environment are used. Information banks become less central   Symbol pads become places not just for recording but working through ideas   A construction kit or a phenomenarium is the central ring in many constructivist oriented innovations, because it places the learner directly and emphatically in the position of having something to make sense with or of, respectively   Task management is given over much more to the learners, albeit with appropriate scaffolding from the teacher (Perkins 1991, 21).   As constructivism demands a fresh approach to instruction, it also requires a new form of assessment. Perkins (1991, 22) argues that it is the "understanding performances" that should be assessed. While traditional CAI has incorporated forms of assessment, the assessment of "understanding performances" with the open-endedness of assessment instruments required would be beyond the present capabilities of computers. As Perkins notes: instruction in a constructivist idiom is likely to involve open-ended student projects, conjectures or interpretation expressed in natural language, and other such "outcomes" not readily guaged by the most adroitly programmed artificial intellignece at the present state of the art.

Conclusion

One of the major problems with constructivist theory would appear to be as to how learners can be assisted to construct their own knowledge. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is still comparatively little known about how the brain functions as far as memory is concerned. Perkins' ideas, however, would appear to establish a valid framework for constructivist teaching and learning. Examining these concepts from a computer assisted learning point of view, it would appear that drill and practice, games and tutorials would have very little part to play in a constructivist-oriented classroom. The last component of CAL, simulations would, however, appear to have an important role to play. The major function of the computer in this scheme would appear to be in its mode as a tool with applications such as word processors, databases, spreadsheets and graphics programs being the ones used most extensively. It would also appear that Perkin's concept of the role of the computer in the constructivist-oriented classroom would be for the storage and retrieval of information, the manipulation of information, and the simulation of phenomena. An examination of Perkin's "five facets of a learning environment" would suggest the following potential uses of computers.

Information Banks

Perkins (1991, 21) suggests that information banks would become less central in a constructivist environment. Despite this, I believe that they should play an important part in the learning situation. I would suggest that there are at least two important reasons for this. The first is that we are moving into an era where more and more information will be stored in computer systems and children must be taught how to search for and access the information that they require and then to manipulate it. We are also moving into an age of information overload (if we are not already in it) and children must be taught how to be discriminating about the information that they have access to. Information access and manipulation should form an integral part of a child's education. A second reason is that it should be possible to produce computer programs which not only hold information, but which will allow it to be manipulated in a variety of ways thus assisting the learners to construct their own knowledge.

Symbol Pads

Perkins states that symbol pads will "become places not just for recording but working through ideas" in a constructivist environment. In his discription of items that can be used as symbol pads, he includes word processors and graphics applications (1991, 18-19) but it would seem apparent that databases and spreadsheets could also fulfil the requirements of providing "surfaces for the construction and manipulations of symbols". It would also appear that applications such as HyperCard would be ideal for this function as it has wordprocessing like capabilities, can be used to create databases and has inbuilt graphics functions.

Construction Kits and Phenomenaria

Perkins states that construction kits and phenomenaria are the "central ring" in many constructivist oriented environments (1991, 21). He includes Logo and simulations (including simulation games) as being computer based materials that fit into this category. The computer-controlled version of Lego (e.g. Lego/Logo) could also be included, as could spreadsheets, as they can be used to simulate various situations. It could also be suggested that as well as using pre-prepared simulations, students could create their own. In the school situation, the greatest success that I had with simulations was when I got a biology class to create their own simulation. The programs were not brilliant, but the students learned as great deal about the ecosystem that they were attempting to model. This view is supported by Webb and Wharton (1991, 245) who state that: While it has become a part of CAL folklore that simulation exercises are 'educationally sound' forms of activity, the present writers consider that a profoundly 'deeper' understanding of the processes involved in a given system may be obtained only from a high level of understanding of the processes of the model or simulation. Ready-made simulations or models are frequently used by students to ask 'what if' questions, by changing the values of variables already programmed into the model. ... However, it is our belief that students using pre-built simulations often have little knowledge of the design, assumptions and limitations of the models whose variable values they are happy to change and record. This is a poor state of affairs in a number of ways, not least of which is the fact that students are given the impression of a neatly functioning world, a world bereft of the difficult decisions and compromises implicit in constructing explanations of it. The richest part of the learning experience in model building is the design and construction of the model itself, and yet this is the very part which students using pre-built models bypass. When my students undertook this project, they had to write the simulation in BASIC and the only reason why this was possible was because I had the same class for both biology and computing. These days, however, there are some very powerful applications which allow simulations to be constructed without the need for programming thus making such activities more applicable to general education.

Task Management

Perkins states that in a constructivist learning environment, much more of task management is given over to the learners than in a 'traditional' one (1991, 21). The reason for this given by Perkins (1991a, 20) is that students cannot develop as autonomous learners if they are not given the chance to manage their own learning. Perkins (1991a, 20) notes, however problems can arise when students are suddenly asked to manage their own resources. This was apparent from my own experience. While teaching first year Human Bioscience to first year nursing students I decided to use HyperCard stacks which created what I considered to be a good learning environment. Students were not given any specific tasks to carry out in conjunction with these stacks and so they invented their own by copying down ever word that appeared on the screen. For the students, after 12 years of traditional education where they had been told what to do, it must have come as a shock to the system to be suddenly made responsible for their own learning. As Perkins states: When learners are asked to thrash around for themselves to some extent, there are often characteristic reactions such as, "Why don't you just tell me what you want me to know?" Such learners are not "buying in" to the constructivist agenda of the instruction, a problem that inevitably stands in the way of a fully engaged learning experience (Perkins 1991a, 20). Traditional forms of CBI have had the potential to exert a high degree of task management in their very structured approach which commonly allowed for only a low level of learner control. In the way in which computers would be used in a constructivist environment, little or no task management would be exerted by them as they would be used mainly in a tool mode rather than an instructional one. A major problem with this type of constructivist approach would appear to be in the area of assessment. The most time efficient way of teaching is to chalk and talk, dictate notes and assess what has been learned by using multiple choice instruments. For a teacher taking a constructivist approach, more preparation would have to be undertaken as suitable activities would have to be prepared and resources gathered. During the learning sessions, the teacher would be heavily involved in coaching students, especially in larger classes. As has already been stated, new forms of assessment will be required to guage the degree of understanding attained by the students. Such assessment instruments would have to be open in nature and material of this kind is far more time consuming to mark, thus putting an even greater burden on the teacher. If a way of assessing the level of understanding of students could be devised which could be undertaken by a computer, a great deal of the teacher's time could be freed up. While Perkins has suggested that this form of assessment is beyond the capabilities of current computers, there is perhaps a way in which it could be done. The easiest way for me, as a teacher, to assess the level of understanding of a student would be to sit down with him or her and ask questions. It should be possible to produce a program which is rather like a 'reverse tutorial' which would ask the students open-ended questions. The answers entered by the students could be recorded for later analysis by the teacher, as well as being analysed by the computer to present more questions, if appropriate. The teacher would be responsible for checking the actual level of understanding of the student while the computer would be responsible for managing the assessment procedure.

Should Computers Know What You Can Do With Them?

While Bransfor et al. (1990, 131) suggest that one use of the computer in education is for the production of computer-videodisk presentations by students, Nix's only suggestion for the use of computers in the classroom is for the students' presentation using a variety of media. Nix (1990, 143) states that machines in general, and computers in particular, "can pose a threat to one's dignity" (1990, 143). He illustrates this by quoting Woody Allen (1965) who states that: My father was fired. He was technologically unemployed. My father worked for the same firm for 12 years. They fired him. They replaced him with a tiny gadget that does everything my father does, only it does it much better. The depressing thing is that my mother ran out and bought one. Nix suggests that in education, dignity is often associated with being able to perform well on various tasks. He says that there is one aspect of dignity, however, that is particularly relevant to the use of computers in education and this is "the aspect of differentness from computeristic predictablility" (1990, 144). To explain this he states that: What dignity means for the purposes of discussion here is based on a child's experience of him or herself as intrinsically different from the way a computer functions, specifically by being able to actively consider his or her processes and feelings, and to be unpredictable in a creative way. Many of the ways computers are used in education pose a threat to the dignity of children. This is a problem. According to Nix, a way of focusing on this problem is to ask the question "Should computers know what you can do with them?" and that this highlights "the notion of creativity in the sense of unpredictability". In the case of the majority of educational software, the computer "knows" what the student will learn from it as a particular learning task has been structured into it. In addition, as a student can be taught to learn in a particular way, the computer also "knows" what this is and so this, too, is predictable, and this is a threat to dignity (Nix, 1990, 144-145). Nix states that this argument rests on the assumption that computers can affect the cognitive processing and feelings of children, but while there is no evidence to either prove or disprove this hypothesis, he states his own position as being: As a matter of faith, based on experience with computers, and many encounters with children and others who have spent large amounts of time engaged in working with and playing with and thinking about computers, it will be assumed here that, yes, prolonged and/or critically important interaction with a computer can and does, in a somewhat Whorfian way, cause predictable changes in both cognition and affect in children (1990, 145). Nix summarises this situation by stating that computers know what children will learn and that "This predictability applies both to the content domain involved, and to the way a child is influenced to think of and feel about learning and his or her role regarding it" and he concludes that "The one poses the problem of mediocrity of knowledge, and the other constitutes a threat to dignity" (1990, 145). Nix examines the educational situations in which computers know "what you can do with them". He states that the most familiar use of computers in education are "the often derided, scorned, and ridiculed drill and practice and the tutorial modes". He states that these modes have been in existence for over 30 years and bear a close resemblance to programmed instruction and "Over the years, the philosophy of these modes has not altered fundamentally, although the sophistication with which they are algorithmetically conducted has". In these modes the child "learns prepackaged information" and so the degree of predictability is high (1990, 145-146). Nix argues that: At the level of learning about learning, drill and practice and tutorial modes embody the notion that learning involves the notion that the concepts of right and wrong are central to thinking about learning, and that these concepts can be and should be unambiguously defined. The child also has the experience that he or she as a person is irrelevant to the process of learning. What is to be learned is out there, defined ahead of time by someone else. Learning is finding what has been defined, remembering it, reproducing it. It is a form of hide and seek. The computer knows something you do not know but need to find out. Learning is not basically to be thought of as a process whereby the child explores, creates, and owns. In these modes, the computer knows what you can do with it. That is, the student's learning outcome is predictable in a meaningful sense (1990, 146). Nix then considers the Logo programming language. The goal of Logo is not for children to learn facts, but to develop problem-solving techniques which can be applied to other Logo situations and, ideally, generalised to other areas of the child's life. Nix states that the "problem-solving technique is computeristic" (unfortunately, he does not define this term) because "The domain of expression is defined basically in conceptual schemes related to computers, such as algorithmic thinking, procedural thinking, logical debugging, and modularisation" (1990, 147). Nix states that while the content is not very predictable, the process is and so "the fact that something significant about the outcome of the child's experience with the system is predictable, generates some of the same concerns as the other modes" (1990, 147). In the case of artificial intelligence CAI, Nix claims that the "goal of such a system would be to transfer and explicated version of expertise from the computer to the child" and that it is predictable (1990, 148). As an example of the educational use of computers in a situation "where they don't know", Nix describes the 'Making-a-scene paradigm'. While he states that this has not yet been fully explored, he describes it as being "based on the use of a child-controlled multimedia computer system, including voice, videodisc and ver [VCR?], audicassette, graphics and a language named HANDY". The focus of the paradigm is to determine how children can use the technology in an expressive way. The technology is not central to the experiences that the children gain, rather the children are enabled to be creative and self-expressive by using the computer, but in areas which are not related to 'computeristic' concepts and "that cannot be expressed computeristically" (1990, 149). Nix claims that this paradigm is different to other educational uses of the computer as the stress is on self-expression. He states that "Our intent is not to teach a particular part of a content area" and "in general, we do not teach anything that ia predictable in a specific, detailed sense" (1990, 149). The Making-a-Scene computer application uses "the computer as a decentred participant", that is, the computer activities form just part of a range and the computer does not know anything about specific content areas (Nix 1990, 149). Nix states that one of the areas in which this paradigm can be used is in the creation of video essays by students. These essays, he states, "instead of being written on paper, consist of video segments chosen by the child to make his or her point, combined with superimposed annotation or extended text, and voice-over from the child". An example of such an essay is one created by 10th. grade students which was a mock political advertisment for a presidential election campaign as part of a course on the political use of video (1990, 153). The video essay used actual footage of the candidates (Ford and Reagan), parts of their speeches and advertisements as well a sequences filmed by the children themselves. Nix states that: In these political campaign advertisement video essays, the computer did not know what the students had done with it. The computer enabled a form of analysis, learning, feelings, and self-expression that cannot be expressed ahead of time in a way that could be computerised and predicted as a learning goal of a teaching system (1990, 154)

Conclusion

Nix's concept that the computer can lead to a loss of dignity of the children would appear to go against the normal advantages claimed for computers used in instruction. These claims are that the computer is infinitely patient, it never gets cross, never gets bored, and is not worried when students make mistakes, and allow students to work at their own pace, all of which would seem to preserve the dignity of the student. The use of the computer for the production of video essays sounds very interesting, but it is, of course, only one of many possible applications. However, if the computer is only to be used for things where the computer does not 'know' what the students are going to do with it, then their educational use will be very restricted.