Constructivist Instruction by Sigmund Tobias

Author:Sigmund Tobias
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2009-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

Passive learning

Learner does not engage in appropriate cognitive processing during learning (e.g., selecting only).

Active instruction

Learner is required to engage in behavioral activity during learning (e.g., discovering a solution to a problem).

Passive instruction

Learner is not required to engage in behavioral activity during learning (e.g., reading a passage or watching a presentation).

long history in psychology and education, with roots in Piaget’s (1970) classic theory of how knowledge develops in children and Bartlett’s (1932) classic theory of how people learn from prose. Today, constructivist theories of learning play a dominant role in psychology and education (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Mayer, 2008) and have useful implications for instructional design (Mayer, 2005).

As an example of a constructivist theory of learning, consider the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, which we have been testing over the past 20 years (Mayer, 2001, 2005; Mayer & Moreno, 2003). As is summarized in Figure 10.2, learning takes place in the human cognitive system, which consists of three memory stores and three cognitive processes.

The three memory stores in Figure 10.2 are:

• sensory memory—Information from the outside world enters your cognitive system through your eyes (such as when you view an animation) and/or your ears (such as when you listen to narration). Information entering via the ears is temporarily held in an auditory sensory memory, and information entering via the eyes is temporarily held in a visual sensory memory. This information fades rapidly but if you pay attention, some of it can be transferred to working memory for further processing.

• working memory—In working memory, you can process only a limited amount of the incoming information at any one time, including mentally reorganizing the incoming information and integrating it with other information transferred from long-term memory. Knowledge construction occurs in working memory, but limits on the capacity of working memory represent a major challenge for instructional design.

• long-term memory—Long-term memory is your storehouse of existing knowledge. It is not limited in capacity or duration, but you can only be aware of its contents when you transfer information to working memory. Only a limited amount of information from long-term memory can be transferred to working memory at any one time.

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