Knowledge and learning in a constructivist framework

The research we describe aimed at studying how the interpersonal attitudes of teachers may influence learning in adult classrooms.

We adopted a constructivist perspective, according to which knowledge is subjective, embodied, and meaning-laden (Sierhuis and Clancey 1997; Tirassa, Carassa, and Geminiani 2000; Tirassa and Vallana 2010; Watzlawick 1984). As humans are intrinsically social and cultural, the knowledge they entertain is relational and intersubjective (Clancey 1997; Mate and Tirassa 2010; Tirassa, Bosco and Colle 2006).

Learning is the transformational process whereby an individual, to a variable degree of deliberation, constructs new knowledge. It builds on the subjectively driven interaction between the knowledge which he has already available and the mental and material experience which he is currently going through and narrating to himself (Carassa, Morganti, and Tirassa 2004, 2005).^[1] Learning is intrinsic to the functioning of the mind, of which it is a continuing side effect.

While learning in general just happens, classes and other instructional environments are purposely designed to favour it. Learning contexts are complex systems of activities (Barab and Plucker 2002; Barab et al. 1999; Turvey and Shaw 1995) within which individuals may relate with each other and with the world by way of tools, whether conceptual or physical (Engerstrm 1987), as well as of the meanings and the narratives that they share (Mate et al. 2010). After the works of Dewey (1916), Luria (1976, 1979), Vygotsky (1978) and Vygotsky and Luria ([1930] 1993), the sharing of knowledge between peers, their participation in real activities with experts, and the relations in which all are engaged are widely acknowledged as crucial features of formal and informal education (Andersen, Boud, and Cohen 1995; Cole 1996; Cranton 2006; Cranton and Carusetta 2004; Fenwick 2001; Keyser 2000; Kolb 1984; Lave and Wenger 1991; Marquardt and Waddill 2004; Revans 1982).

The relation between teachers and students is asymmetrical and structurally complementary (Lindsey and Barratt 2006; Wubbels, Brekelmans, and Hermans 1987; Wubbels et al. 2006). Because of her role as a catalyst of learning (Brookfield 1997), the teacher has to govern the conditions that will open the way for the learners' construction of knowledge and for the resulting changes in their ways of thinking and acting.

We investigated some aspects of the relation between the educator and her audience, and how these may affect learning. We described the educator's interpersonal attitudes and the learners' mental attitudes that prelude to knowledge construction as two collections of empirically observable indexes. Specifically, we listed a set of interpersonal moves that teachers may enact in the classroom, concerning, for example, how they use examples, reply to interventions or manage the overall agenda, and a set of motivational indexes in the learners, like their apparent levels of attention or understanding. Then, we analysed the statistical correlations between the two sets of indexes.

To study the actual practices that teachers enact in the classroom we made online behavioural observations during lessons. While there is a general tendency of researchers to move from experimental conditions to real classes (e.g. Bolhuis and Voeten 2001; Newmann, Marks, and Gamoran 1996), it is usually schools that are observed, and we found no literature concerning adult training.

Adult courses share many typical features of classroom environments. Complex networks of events occur within them that influence learning by way of a variety of cognitive, interpersonal, emotional, and cultural factors (den Brok 2001; Shuell 1996). Classroom contexts (Doyle 1986), in general, are characterised by the simultaneity of many events, the unpredictability of their evolution, the publicness of each actor's behaviours, the scarce time generally available for reflection, and the progressing accumulation of a commonality of experiences, norms and routines. The latter feature is usually lacking in adult training, where participants often have scarce or no previous acquaintance and little time to grow one. Consequently, the interpersonal dynamics in the classroom will depend more heavily, on the one hand, on more or less standardised routines and, on the other hand, on a deft management of the breakdowns that may occur.

The hypothesis that a teacher's behaviour should basically be consistent with her beliefs and ideals (Johnson 1992; Richardson 1994; Richardson et al. 1991) is scarcely supported by empirical evidence (Bolhuis and Voeten 2001; Fang 1996). This is probably due to the difficulties that teachers encounter in putting their abstract knowledge into practice in real contexts (Wubbels, Brekelmans, and Hooymayers 1992). Novice educators may find this particularly taxing (den Brok 2001; Hogan, Rabinowitz, and Craven 2003): consequently, we paid specific attention to possible differences between expert and novice teachers.

To resume, the aims of this research were

(1)to explore whether the actions enacted by an educator toward the learners may be taken as local cues of her underlying general interpersonal attitudes in and about the situation;

(2) to describe such behaviours and gather them into meaningful clusters;

(3) to explore possible differences in the general interpersonal attitudes of novice vs. expert educators; and

(4) to explore how such attitudes correlate with the learners' behaviours.

 

Реферат

The article “Knowledge and learning in a constructive framework” is taken from the research paper “Knowledge construction: The role of the teacher’s interpersonal attitudes” by D.Mate, A.Brizio and M.Tirassa. The authors note that learning is transformational process whereby an individual constructs a new knowledge. They consider the knowledge construction as two collections of empirically observable indexes which include a set of interpersonal moves that teachers may act in the classroom (how they use examples) and a set of motivational indexes in the learners. In terms of conclusion, the researchers of this paper resume the aims of their work.

 

Аннотация

The article “Knowledge and learning in a constructive framework” is taken from the research paper “Knowledge construction: The role of the teacher’s interpersonal attitudes” by D.Mate, A.Brizio and M.Tirassa. They consider the knowledge construction as two collections of empirically observable indexes which include a set of interpersonal moves and a set of motivational indexes in the learners. In terms of conclusion, the researchers of this paper resume the aims of their work.