[quoting Reeves, 14 Nov 95] Needless to say, I would not now advocate that we should have set up an constructivist learning environment for the missile trainees in which they would have "discovered" the procedures for establishing their targets. The trainees might have constructed a mental model of their role akin to that of the mad General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick's classic film, Dr. Strangelove. No, an instructivist approach was absolutely necessary. At the same time, when I consider the enormous needs in education and training today, especially the demand for lifelong learning and knowledge workers, I see a great deal of merit in contrasting instructivist and constructivist views of the world. Further, considering the small payoffs resulting from he millions of dollars that have been and are being spent on efforts to automate ISD or build intelligent tutoring systems, I don't think any of us can afford to be neutral.
This is where I am clearly a little confused with the whole C & I debate.
Is constructivism concerned with how learners learn (i.e., constructing knowledge), or is it concerned with instructional approaches, for example discovery learning.
As I see it, certain aspects of the military training environment Tom described (e.g.. move about the shelter to practice and learn all the complex sequences of steps involved in generating targets) are essentially constructivist in nature. The user, interacting with this simulated environment, is given the opportunity to construct a mental model of the shelter environment and discover the various procedures conducted within.
Sure, you could argue that this mental model is a product of the developer, but in reality doesn't everything have its roots in world of someone or something else.
Our challenge is to create learning environments which support the goal of the training/education program. I don't think we should be trying to develop programs at a particular interactive level or which specifically set out to utilize a particular instructional strategy etc., (and I know Rod is not suggesting this) but rather we should be asking "what are we trying to achieve" or "what do we want" and creating instructional (or should I say learning) activities/environments (whether they be constructivist or instructivist in nature) which support this.
Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline argues that as long as our focus remains on the vision, or WHAT we want, the HOW will become obvious. This perhaps sounds simplistic and even a tad utopian, but having worked in the area for almost ten years, all too often this seems to be forgotten, both globally and at the individual program level.
Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we should cease to explore and experiment, but rather that we use the outcomes of these to further develop our understanding of the learner and instructional technology, not necessarily as the "goal" of our next program.
I, like Rod, tend to think that too often we search for THE answer, which of course assumes that there is an answer.
The idea that there may not be an answer doesn't always sit comfortably with people.
Without taking this issue too far it begs the question: "Is a science of instructional technology possible and/or desirable?" (Perhaps this could be the subject of a future forum)
Finally, could someone paint me a picture (not literally) of what a constructivist authoring tool might look like. Again I have to side with Rod [Sims, 14 Nov 95.b] on this one, i.e., "...those software tools are OPEN, what is closed is the mind of the developers..."
Surely once you put constructivist authoring tools (whatever they might look like) in the hands of the developer, then the developer in essence takes control (perhaps to a lesser degree) of the learning environment.
The learner might drive the car, but the developer builds the roads and determines the road rules?
Where is the line?