Which of the following is not a characteristic of a constructivist classroom?

Social constructivism: building knowledge

Having looked at the key types knowledge that exist in organisations and the directories that point to them, it makes sense at this stage to outline how this knowledge is created, accepted, shared and reinforced because this sets the scene for what kinds of technology tools can support what we call ‘knowledge transformation processes’ in organisations. The knowledge transformation processes around receiving orders (proprietary prescriptive, normative) is quite different to a sales offensive (proprietary descriptive) or solving problems with deep-sea drilling equipment (emergent) or assessing why a power substation built thirty years ago is subsiding (distinctive, original expert) and result in a different set of knowledge outcomes.

The theoretical base we use to understand knowledge is called social constructivism, or the ‘sociology of knowledge’. It characterises knowledge as the sets of beliefs or mental models people use to interpret actions and events in the world. This way of looking at knowledge contrasts with empiricism, a philosophy of knowledge which tells us the way we see the world is pretty much how it actually is. Social constructivism tells us we build knowledge as ways of understanding the world, and that these ways of understanding are a subset of how the world could be understood. When we consider the wide diversity of world views, this seems a very sensible idea, if a little more complicated. A shaman’s knowledge of the spirit world allows him to interpret naturally occurring phenomena as portents or signs. Moral knowledge allows us to assess behaviour as right or wrong, criminal, unethical or fair. Knowledge of invoice processing allows a programmer to generate automatic reminder letters. Social constructivism does not judge whether or not there are actually such things as ‘spirits’ or ‘right and wrong’ or even ‘invoices’. ‘What is ‘real’ to a Tibetan monk may not be ‘real’ to an American businessman (or even a Trappist for that matter).

This reality is constructed by individuals within social groups over periods of time, whether Pathan tribesmen or Wall Street bankers, mostly in conversation and through social rituals, which are ways of bridging the gaps between the personal consciousnesses of different individuals. Language, artefacts and symbolic behaviour are the shared, physical embodiment of a group’s collective, permanent solutions to its ongoing problems. These solutions persist in groups as interpretive structures which are continually articulated, enacted and thereby re-created in processes of social behaviour.

The process model in Figure 6.6 seeks to capture the core elements of social constructivism. The terms in the boxes in the model are those used by seminal writers on social constructivism, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, while those outside each box are our translation into more everyday expressions.22 We explain these in more detail below.

What an individual knows is (1) personal knowledge, consisting of ‘typificatory schemes’, which are the frameworks used to interpret and make sense of the actions of other people and the physical world (writers like Peter Senge and Chris Argyris call these ‘mental models’ or ‘theories in use’) and recipe knowledge, which is ‘know-how’, or ‘knowledge limited to pragmatic competence in routine performance’. This personal knowledge is constructed through a number of processes. One can absorb knowledge in a process of (2) internalisation, which describes the absorption of knowledge by a recipient. Or one can (3) create new knowledge by combining existing knowledge in one’s own head or through habituation (the development of knowledge into useful routines through repetition of work or tasks) and transformations (radically changing subjective reality and creating new ideas). The new knowledge one absorbs or creates can be (4) externalised, which is the expression of knowledge in a symbolic form such as speech, artefacts or gestures into the physical world, such that others can perceive and internalise it. Once externalised, (5) objectivation is the creation of shared, social constructs that represent a group rather than an individual understanding of the world. This objective knowledge is ‘stored’ in physical symbols such as language, behaviour or artefacts which are endowed with social significance and which can be shared. Objectified or shared concepts are then subject to (7) legitimation, a process whereby knowledge is authorised by people or groups who have power and meanings are validated and accepted as ‘correct’ or ‘standard’ by others. They become ‘institutions’. Finally, over time, (8) reification acts upon legitimated concepts to make them unquestionable and self-evident. Reification is ‘the apprehension of human phenomena … as if they were things.’ It is a process in which concepts (such as witchcraft, incest taboos or loan approval) harden in the minds of the group and attain an existence, apparently independent of human beings, which can no longer be challenged.

There are processes which combine together to form recognisable suites: (9) socialisation is the ‘comprehensive and consistent induction of an individual into the objective world of a society or a sector of it’. It is the internalisation of role-specific language and knowledge that comprise the objectified knowledge of a group. This process shapes the individual’s behaviour and interpretation of organisational meaning. Internalisation of objectified social structures and externalising oneself into that (and being corrected and guided in the case of wrong moves) involves newcomers directly in the knowledge transformation processes of a group. Individual identity is formed as people recognise and adopt roles and behaviours. (6) Institutionalisation is the process over time of establishing predefined ‘patterns of action’ which cause certain actors in certain roles to behave in certain ways, thereby setting up systems of control and behaviour vis-a-vis an objectified and shared typification or concept. Institutions ‘consist of cognitive, normative and regulative structures that provide stability and meaning to social behavior. Institutions are transported by various carriers – cultures, structures, and routines – and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction.’23 Institutions are shared between actors; they are not personal preferences or ideas. People are habituated into roles, which define the relevance of an institution to one’s own or other people’s behaviour. Roles are linked to typificatory schemes which define acceptable modes of interaction and which define the degree of ‘sharedness’, objectivity and authority of knowledge.

We maintain social reality and co-create knowledge with others in the most basic of all human interactions, face-to-face conversation. Conversations occur within a space (work, pub, family) within which we adopt and act out our allocated or adopted roles. We not only exchange information flows on multiple channels (facial expression, gestures) but do so with great rapidity. Intended and unintended distortions can occur regularly in communicative interaction and are caused by differences in social background and status, uncertainty and fear, purposeful manipulation, personality biases. In face-to-face conversation we are not just exchanging information with our partners in conversation, we are creating, forming and legitimating views of the world. We are not allowed to stray, we are constantly being corrected and correcting others, bringing each other to the belief that these are the things that exist (love, duty, trees and politicians) and this is the way they are. It’s a little like sketching – we do not draw by moving our hand to the perfect form of what we observe, but by correcting deviations in our hand as we move the pencil to the paper.24

Web 2.0 tools are social software, supporting conversations which are time-delayed, open and public and without physical presence. The processes in the model and the associated conversational signals are moved to new media. They take a number of forms, and these usually dictate the characteristics of the resulting knowledge outcome, for example:

A legitimating process that includes the CEO will usually result in a carefully controlled and polished final artefact whereas approving a new tolerance benchmark on a machine might be done by a mechanic with a blue sticker.

Announcements to an entire department will be externalised via an announcement on the corporate intranet but externalisation to a small maintenance team will be done verbally in a team meeting.

Externalising a best practice method might be done by an expert on a blog but externalising that practice as a procedure will be done by the quality manager.

Understanding the knowledge transformation processes provides a toolbox for asking important questions about the most appropriate type of technology support, security and scope of access: How is this knowledge created – who should participate? How and to whom can it be externalised? Is this knowledge objectified (i.e. commonly understood) or is it a work in progress? What level of legitimation does it require to be expressed? How will these things translate to a wiki or a blog? In particular, we can express these transformations in terms of the game played within the space we have defined: Who are the players and what are the roles they adopt? How are we to socialise players into their roles? What constitutes an act of legitimation or objectivation?

The modern business environment, with higher turnover, physical dispersal of staff and outsourcing changes these knowledge transformation processes, often making them more difficult. E-mail is the currently preferred method of overcoming time and space asymmetries in business, but open Web 2.0 tools like wikis provide a persistent, public and more integrated means of executing social processes around knowledge development and exchange. Knowledge transformation processes are moved to a medium not requiring physical presence. It certainly is one that is far more public and permanent than conversation, but it is nonetheless emerging knowledge. Procedures, mission statements, reports and other fully legitimated documents do not appear from nowhere – they are the result of conversations which mirror the constructivist processes of externalisation, internalisation, legitimation, objectivation and so on. These conversations can now take place in a forum using Web 2.0 tools which overcomes the difficulties of dispersal, coordination, lack of persistence and structure.

Qualitative Methodology

A qualitative methodology is associated with holistic-inductive paradigms (social constructionist, social constructivism, phenomenological, and interpretive social sciences approaches). Holistic-inductive paradigms enable researchers to study (business) phenomena in their totality and complexity, instead of focusing on sets of variables and subsequent causal relationships representing parts of the overall whole of the business or business-related phenomenon being studied. Theory development is generated inductively from empirical materials (data) rather than through the use of a priori theories. Researchers employing this methodology essay to understand the business phenomenon as an insider. The term “emic” is applied to describe “insider” research. Sampling methods will be nonrandom or nonprobabilistically determined. Research designs emerge and consolidate in the process of empirical materials (data) collection and concurrent analysis. Designs are context specific. Research is normally undertaken with the full understanding of the persons involved in the phenomenon, and using their knowledge bases to interpret the empirical materials (data). Research is reported using a narrative-style genre. The voice of the texts is first person and active voice. A qualitative methodology generates multiple “truths” from real-world settings, such as business environments and contexts. Findings are related to the local setting and may be generalized to other similar settings and contexts.

Social constructivism

In the fields of sociology of science and Science and Technology Studies (STS), social constructivism has been widely used, supporting the ideas of Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). As a learning theory, constructivism is based on the idea that cognitive (or mental) activity constructs knowledge by making meaning, mediated by language (this is also clear in Vygotsky’s work). This interaction between experience and ideas creates knowledge, through discovery and exploration of problems and confronting them.

Constructivism means that human beings do not find or discover knowledge so much as construct or make it. We invent concepts, models and schemes to make sense of experience and further, we continually test and modify these constructions in the light of new experience. (Schwandt, 1994, pp. 125–6)

From the constructivist position, knowledge is constructed by humans, validated by use in society, and so maintained by social institutions. There are weak and strong versions of constructivism: in the weak version, human representations of reality or concepts are social constructs: if representations or conceptions of an entity or phenomenon are socially constructed, they can thereafter act upon the entities. In strong social constructivism, not only are the representations of concepts socially constructed, but the entities themselves are as well. As Latour and Woolgar (1986) discuss in Laboratory Life, chemical substances, for example, are only recognised as such because of the social knowledge system which conceives them to be so. The work of Latour in particular suggests that knowledge is, in fact, generated by its social process of consensus-building within communities, much like Kuhn (1962/1970).

Constructivism recognises discourses and sign-systems operating not only upon the objects of a given knowledge structure – such as a discipline or profession – but also upon its human subjects: its professionals. So, this learning theory defies the hegemony of grand narratives, and questions the authority of the natural sciences as the only way in which to create knowledge. Instead, the traditional macro-structures of disciplines break up in the face of contingent and socially negotiated knowledge creation. Smaller groups of collaborative individuals create microstructures of meaning, as all knowledge is socially and culturally constructed, so what an individual learns depends on what the learning leader (or teacher) provides. Interaction with ‘experts’ (those who ‘possess’ knowledge) remains essential, but the nature of the interaction differs significantly. Because of the wide array of digital resources (sometimes considered to be surrogate ‘experts’), and the use of social media, the generation of ideas and knowledge is not controlled or stable: it is constantly open to modification and interpretation (Breu and Hemingway, 2002), and becomes ‘the wisdom of the crowds’ (Surowiecki, 2004). ‘Crowd-sourcing’ has become the new method of information retrieval as collective intelligence is understood to be superior to that of the individual. Participating in the identification, creation and sharing of ideas – and experiencing these processes – becomes more important than ‘consuming’ or absorbing it.

Teaching in the constructivist mode is collaborative, and ICTs facilitate and encourage this, so that collaboration can extend beyond the individual and his/her interaction with information resources and ideas, to others in the learning community. Constructivism shapes teaching and learning as:

a constant activity;

a search for meaning;

understanding the whole as well as parts;

understanding mental models of students and other knowledge creators (suggesting customised curricula);

assessment as part of the learning process;

learning undertaken collaboratively and through conversations.

One of the responsibilities of the teacher is to recognise the individuality of each student, so that what Vygotsky (1978) describes as the ‘zone of proximal development’ can be achieved. This is the area in which the student is challenged but not overwhelmed and can remain unthreatened and yet learn something new from the experience. Vygotsky also articulated the notion of ‘scaffolding’, meaning that teaching must start with what the student already knows and building a further framework which will support further knowledge, and typically this involves proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. This metaphor ties in nicely with constructivism.

Postmodern Therapies

Recent years have seen the emergence of what are referred to as postmodern theories and therapies, also referred to commonly as social constructivism. These are exemplified by such developments as Solution-Focused and Narrative Therapy. These approaches emphasize the creation of meaning via evolving dialog in a collaborative therapeutic relationship. The idea of the therapist as an outside or objective observer and an expert on change for the client, with power and authority in the therapy resting with the therapist, is replaced by a collaborative search for meaning in the therapeutic dialog.

As a solution focus suggests, the principle orientation is on solutions to difficulties, rather than an exploration of the origins or maintenance of these difficulties. Exceptions to the problematic situation, drawing on the client's own resources and accomplishments, and a tendency for a shorter course of therapy sessions also characterize solution-focused therapy.

Narrative therapy emphasizes the significance of the meaning attached to experiences and stories that the individual holds about himself or herself. People's views of themselves and the world are shaped through these complex meanings. As well, the cultural context that contributes to human thought and actions is deserving of exploration, as these contribute to a person's story. Through therapy, the individual has an opportunity to reexamine his or her story and to co-construct a different or preferred story that is more consistent with the individual's preferred values and purposes for that individual's life.

An appreciation of gender and culture can also be included under the rubric of postmodern therapies. Feminist theory and therapy attend to the broader social issues that the client must contend with, emphasizing collaboration, respect, a focus on strengths, and sensitivity to issues of power and control in the therapeutic relationship. The importance of nonsexist language and sensitivity to the implications of domestic violence are two additional contributions that have emerged since feminist theory and therapy became prominent in the 1980s. Feminist therapy articulates the long-held concern that traditionally accepted theories reflect patriarchy and male domination.

Introduction

Business research is predominantly informed by the paradigms of positivism and postpositivism, particularly critical realism. However, other paradigms—social constructionism, social constructivism, social phenomenology, and the interpretive social science paradigms—are now being included in the repertoire of business researchers. Related to this group of paradigms are critical theory, feminist perspectives, and postmodern and participatory paradigms, although there is debate as to whether feminist perspectives and “postmodernism” are independent paradigms or differing perspectives among social constructionism, social constructivism, social phenomenology, and the interpretive social science paradigms. All of these paradigms espouse specific ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological tenets. In particular, the tenets of each paradigm influence the methodology used to design business research projects. To be specific, positivistic and postpositivistic as well as chaos and complexity theory paradigms draw on a quantitative methodology. Social constructionist, social constructivist, social phenomenological, and interpretive social science-related paradigms generally use a qualitative methodology. Research using mixed methods incorporates both quantitative and qualitative methodologies (and quantitative and qualitative methods) in differing amounts and phases of research projects.

9.3.1 Constructivism

In earlier chapters we have outlined a broad shift in pedagogical thinking and practice from transmission of information by teachers to learners, towards a pedagogy based on the ideas of social constructivism. Constructivism is typically represented as a theory of learning in which learners construct their understandings via critical engagement with knowledge to build personal structures of knowledge. Rather than simply receiving information the learner seeks meaning from a variety of information sources and discussion with others. Teaching practice shifts from lectures and other transmittal modes, to problem-based, collaborative and experiential designs for learning. Tanner (2012) presented a concrete example of constructivist ideas in practice, which we discussed in Chapter 4.

This shift in thinking is an important development for information literacy education for two reasons. First, constructivism offers insights into how information literacy might best be taught by lecturers and librarians. This implies a need to devise educational and professional development training for librarians, to provide opportunities to develop a capacity for constructivist practice. Second, as constructivist teaching strategies take hold and become mainstream in higher education, the change pressurises information literacy specialists to revise their perspectives on the nature of information literacy teaching.

This shift in perspective is exemplified by the development by ACRL of the new Framework for information literacy, which we discussed in Chapter 7. In effect, ACRL was responding to changes in the pedagogical thinking, practice and culture of American higher education when it decided to revise the earlier Standards. In both cases it is important for librarians with teaching responsibilities to explore constructivist perspectives, investigate how they might be applied to their own work, and engage in pedagogical debate with subject lecturers, many of whom will be experiencing a similar pressure to revise their practice. This process is already evident in the literature, for example: Bruce (2008) Elmborg (2006), Harris (2008), Hepworth and Walton (2009), Jackson (2007), Johnston and Webber (2003), Limberg, Alexandresson, Lantz-Andersson and Folkesson (2008), Lindstrom and Shonrik (2006), Medaille and Shannon (2012), Mounce (2010), Pritchard (2010), Rosling and Littlemore (2011), Walton and Hepworth (2011), Webber, Boon and Johnston (2005), and Webber and Johnston (2000).

As constructivism comes to hold a preeminent position in guiding curriculum renovation, and associated organisational development of teaching practice, course design and technological innovation, it makes considerable sense to engage with those ideas in depth. This course of action can take many forms, but we suggest that approaches which encourage significant engagement with the ideas of constructivism described in this book are required. For example, development projects aimed at changing the design of whole courses; research into constructivist pedagogy in different disciplinary contexts; and of course doctoral studies of constructivist approaches to information literacy.

Underpinning constructivist approaches to teaching and learning is the development of metacognition, represented as the learner gradually gaining greater awareness of his/her ways of thinking, leading to greater capacity to regulate those processes. Metacognition is now a prominent force in the debate on how to improve student learning and should be explicit in course designs, and teaching, learning and assessment practice. Developing metacognition amongst learners can be operationalised by a variety of mechanisms; reflection, discussion and analysis of the cognitive structure of a given experience are general tactics. Again Tanner (2012) provides a good indicative guide based on practical teaching experience. Equally important is the exploration and enhancement of teaching practices appropriate to a constructivist thinking. Simply advocating a move from ‘transmission’ to ‘facilitation’ is insufficient and it is essential for teachers to develop the personal characteristics to provide effective teaching practice.

Multiple dimensions of instruction

One reason the reading wars raged is because, traditionally, classroom instruction has been viewed as one-dimensional – whole-language or phonics – or as too complex to reduce to simple pieces (e.g., social constructivism or critical theory). Certainly, teaching and learning are highly complex processes and attempts to measure them necessarily fail to capture some of their complexity. Fruitful emerging conceptualizations present teaching and learning as multidimensional with the model becoming more complex as additional dimensions are considered. As we have discussed, literacy itself is multidimensional so using a parallel argument, if literacy has multiple dimensions, then examining sources of classroom influence on literacy multidimensionally will be more informative than examining their impact globally at the curriculum level. As research on classroom instruction continues, more dimensions will be identified. Here we present four of the more salient dimensions, teacher- versus child-managed, code-versus meaning-focused, student- versus classroom-level, and change over time. These dimensions operate simultaneously and may be conceptualized as two tables with teacher- versus child-managed as columns and code- versus meaning-focused as rows with a table for classroom and another table for student-level instruction.

The dimension teacher- versus child-managed instruction is a continuum that ranges from the teacher lecturing while students listen (teacher-managed) to more interactive teaching (teacher/child-managed) to peer interactions (peer-managed) to children working independently. Overall, this dimension captures who is focusing the child’s attention on the learning task. For example, the teacher discussing a book with the students would be teacher/child-managed. Students working independently on seat work would be child-managed. Students working in groups or buddy reading would be peer-managed (a type of child-managed instruction). There is evidence that all three (teacher/child, child, and peer) contribute to student learning although children who struggle with reading generally require more time with the teacher (i.e., teacher/child-managed instruction).

The dimension code- versus meaning-focused instruction has been well established throughout the extant literature and finds its roots in the Simple View of Reading (proficient reading is the product of decoding and comprehension) and the Reading Wars (phonics vs. whole language). Code-focused instruction is designed to help children grasp the alphabetic principle, to gain phonological awareness, to blend and segment words, to learn spelling and phonics, and to read words fluently. Meaning-focused instruction is designed to support students’ efforts to understand what they read and includes vocabulary, reading aloud, reading independently, writing, grammar, and comprehension strategies.

If we consider two dimensions – teacher-versus child-managed and code versus meaning-focused – these dimensions together form a grid upon which any literacy activity can be placed (Table 2). So, for example, children reading together in the library corner would be considered peer-managed meaning-focused instruction. The teacher explaining to children how word families work (b-at, c-at, h-at) would be an example of teacher/child-managed code-focused, and children doing phonics worksheets at their desks would be an example of child-managed code-focused instruction.

Table 2. Examining two dimensions of instruction simultaneously

Teacher-managedChild-managedPeer-managedCode-focused• Alphabet instruction• Alphabet worksheets• Alphabet practice• Letter–sound correspondence• Letter–sound correspondence activities• Letter–sound correspondence activities• Phonological awareness• Phonological awareness activities• Phonological awareness• Phonics• Phonics• Phonics• Word fluency• Word fluency• Word fluencyMeaning-focused• Vocabulary instruction• Vocabulary practice• Vocabulary activities• Comprehension strategies• Comprehension strategies• Comprehension strategies• Connected text fluency• Independent fluency practice• Connected text fluency buddy reading• Read aloud• Sustained independent silent reading• Read aloud pairs• Discussion• Discussion• Model writing• Independent writing• Buddy writing or writer’s workshop

The classroom- versus student-level dimension considers the extent to which instruction is the same or different for each child in the classroom. When the teacher is reading aloud or conducting a phonics lesson to the entire classroom, this would be classroom level. All of the children are being provided essentially the same information. Even if children are working in small groups or individually (e.g., seat work), if they are all doing substantially the same thing (e.g., reading the same book), then that is classroom-level instruction. In contrast, when children are engaged in substantially different activities at the same time, this is considered student-level instruction. A key characteristic is that student-level instruction is individualized and may be provided in small groups or when children work individually (e.g., centers with different activities, tutoring one child while the rest do other activities). Specific types of activities, for example, book reading, can occur on both the classroom and student levels. For example, in one classroom, a teacher might read aloud to the entire class (teacher/child-managed, meaning-focused, classroom-level), while in another, a teacher might read aloud to a small group of children (teacher/child-managed, meaning-focused, child-level) while the rest of the children engage in substantially different activities such as writing in their journals (child-managed, meaning-focused, child-level).

The dimension change over time addresses the amount of time spent on specific instructional activities from grade to grade, as well as during the school year. Literacy instruction in second grade differs substantially from instruction in first or third grade. At the same time, many teachers change their instructional emphasis over the course of a single school year. For example, a teacher might begin the year with a strong focus on explicit, teacher-managed decoding instruction that decreases by winter and spring as children master basic skills. Researchers have also found that for first graders with weaker vocabulary scores, small amounts of child-managed, meaning-focused (e.g., independent reading and writing) activities at the beginning of the school year that decreased over the first grade year was associated with stronger decoding skill growth. The opposite pattern held for children with strong vocabulary skills, for whom consistently high amounts of child-managed meaningfocused instruction related to stronger decoding skills.

Using these dimensions provides a better representation of the complexity of teaching and learning (although not fully) because, as research shows, even in whole-language classrooms, some time is spent in code-focused activities and any code-focused core curriculum includes opportunities for children to read connected text (a meaning-focused activity). Effective teachers individualize instruction (i.e., provide student-level instruction), balancing the amounts and types of reading instruction, across multiple dimensions, based on children’s assessed learning needs. Viewing reading instruction multidimensionally rather than as ‘whole-language’ or ‘skill-based’ has been instrumental in revealing that the impact of any given instructional strategy depends on the vocabulary and reading skills students bring to the classroom (i.e., child-by-instruction interactions).

These child-by-instruction interactions reinforce the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning. This means that there is not one ‘best way’ to teach reading. Although, as we have discussed, children must master the alphabet principle on their path to proficient reading, providing intensive instruction in the alphabetic principle to students who can already read Charlotte’s Web will probably not advance their reading skills. In the same way, providing sustained opportunities to read Charlotte’s Web independently for a child who has not mastered fluent phonological decoding will most likely lead to frustration and less learning. As discussed, research shows that instruction that takes into account the unique constellation of skills children bring to the classroom is more effective than the traditional ‘one size fits all’ and ‘every child on the same page’ approaches. Moreover, as research continues, we are becoming more sophisticated in developing ways to predict and recommend optimal patterns of instruction for children based on their language and literacy skills.

8.10 Conclusion

Over the last two decades, there has been a shift in thinking about how best to encourage student learning. The focus of that shift has been from notions of individualized absorption by learners of information transmitted by lecturers to the notion of social constructivism. Constructivism is typically represented as a theory of learning in which learners construct their understandings via critical engagement with knowledge to build personal structures of knowledge. Allied to the constructivist account of learning is an emphasis on students developing a deeper awareness of and regulatory capacity in relation to their own cognitive processes and learning strategies. Equally important is the development of sophisticated notions of the nature of knowledge and a conscious effort to move beyond the basic right/wrong factual accounts, which incoming students typically display, to more nuanced and relativistic appreciation of the nature of knowledge.

This shift has significant implications for both subject teaching and IL education. Key characteristics of the design of a constructivist course of study would include an emphasis on the importance of students coming to see learning as a process of critical thinking and meaning making; the explicit use of varied and complex information sources to expand knowledge horizons and encourage arguments based in systematic review of sources; engagement in group discussion, team projects, and collaborative learning strategies; the development of reflective practices through appreciation of models, discussion, and written accounts of practice; and the gradual development of self-regulation through planning, task analysis, self and peer evaluation.

Such a course design could include the conscious development of a CofP aimed at encouraging students to engage in relevant epistemological and information literate academic practices. Equally, the design could simply permit a student generated bottom-up CofP, which could be supported if need be. In either scenario, we suggest that the course design should engage students with their epistemological development and ensure that is a stated purpose of the course, which is explicit in the teaching and learning strategy and is specifically valued in the assessment strategy.

Which is not a characteristic of constructivist classroom?

Which of the following are characteristics of constructivist classroom?

What are the characteristics of the constructivist teaching?

Which of the following is not true about constructivist teaching?