Constructivist Strategies for Online Learning Environment

Online learning is an approach to learning that gives learners flexibility in terms of time, place and pace of learning. It is interesting to know that with the growing influence of technology, the actual process of learning is undergoing a paradigm shift. Learners today have a choice over the process of learning and sharing knowledge - in person, by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time and through other chatting ways, despite being separated by geographical boundaries. Thanks to virtual classrooms that is a concept which is now taken more seriously by universities, institutions and corporates world-over!
Constructivist approaches blended with technology have been instrumental in helping learners in the online learning environment. The online learners are essentially engaged in real world or authentic tasks that are anchored in a situation depending on their context and performance setting. This greatly enables the adult learners to construct personal meaning from their experiences. They are also exposed to a variety of teaching methods/environment which requires communication with other individuals despite being separated geographically. Group work, collaborative efforts, reflective thinking, introspection, exploratory learning, etc finally make them self-directed individuals.
Constructivist strategies can be broadly classified into exploratory strategies, dialogic strategies and supportive strategies. Exploratory strategies include problem-solving strategies, role-playing, hypothesis generation and exploration. Dialogic strategies are those that extensively use dialogue in them. Articulation, reflection, multiple perspectives and collaboration and social learning come under the umbrella of dialogic strategies. Modeling and explaining, coaching and scaffolding are strategies that come under supportive strategies. These strategies promote teaching that involves some kind of a back and forth transaction between the instructor and the learner or between learners, over traditional teaching. In such a context, learners actively construct their own knowledge. They get more involved in the process of learning whereby they realize the importance of taking responsibility of their knowledge. All the constructivist strategies help in promoting self-directed learning, which is a strategy in itself. (Source: Online Learning, Concepts, Strategies and Application - Nada Dabbagh, Brenda Bannan-Ritland, Pearson, Merrill Prentice Hall, 2005)

It is a process in which learners take the initiative with or without help from others to analyze their learning needs, state learning goals, identify resources for learning, choose and implement learning strategies and most importantly evaluate the learning outcomes. Along with this the learner also learns to use the task strategies – rehearsing and memorizing, organizing and transforming; help seeking and time planning and management. The online environment is ruled by the fact that the learner and the facilitator are separated geographically and the effects of this constraint can be overcome by making the learners self-directed individuals.

Google Docs as a Teaching-Learning Tool:

Google docs is a tool that can be used very conveniently by various users. It is like a separate google account which looks after your mails and other data extremely well. I used this tool for a few assignments and I felt it was the most convenient mode for communicating with various people for work purposes.

What makes it the best and the most comfortable tool to be used, is its various features. It segregates your assignments and data; date wise. You can put your data under various folders. For example, If you tag one of your data under the name of “assignment”, a Box with the name “assignment” will appear next to that document.

It also allows you to customize the appearance of the folder name.

The most convenient facility provided by this tool is that you have the facility to share you power point presentations, excel sheets and word documents. You can easily publish them for the rest of members to view it. If you add your colleagues or other members as collaborators, they can also view the same presentation, spreadsheet or word document. It helps you work on the same stuff from different places.

The excel sheet also provides you with the facility to chat with your collaborators, hence making discussion easy and worthwhile. There is a separate icon for excel sheet, PowerPoint and word documents provided, therefore making the documents easily identifiable. Important documents can be ticked with a star next to it.

The chat and the document sharing facility made it very easy for me to coordinate with my group members to complete the work assigned. Below given are the steps that need to be followed to enter into Google Docs.

We all are use to the interface of G mail. Once we sign in with our gmail ids, there is an option of “more” on the top left hand side corner of the interface. Once that option is clicked, we can click on the “even more” option. There will be several tools or features listed, that are provided by google. There will be an icon of Docs and Spreadsheets. A click on it will lead you to your google docs inbox. It is simple to use and very convenient.

I found it very simple to use yet very systematic and thought of sharing it with others.

Below is the image of what a google docs inbox looks like:

Teaching strategies, methods and models

Teaching someone is a challenge which teachers always face in their field. To achieve this challenge successfully and to find more satisfaction in teaching, a teacher can use different strategies. A teacher can be more powerful and thoughtful in their teaching. There are many strategies which a teacher can use to help a learner to retain it in a better way and for a longer period. Strategies like collaborative learning, giving students a case study, teaching them through stories, giving them some games like jigsaw puzzles and many more can be added in this list. Strategies which are included here are for face to face learning but nowadays classrooms are going virtual, teachers are replaced by instructors and so strategies are also used for online learning. In this section you can share some new and different strategies which can be used in face to face teaching as well as online teaching. There are many teaching models and strategies given by reputed psychologists which can also be shared in this section. This section will assist you with new strategies and teaching models which will enhance your teaching.