Abstract
Constructivism is a view of learning centered on the credence that knowledge isn't a contrivance simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students at their desks. Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge.
Educational curricula and teaching methods are changing; one component of the current redevelopment of all subject area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings.
Comparing Theoretic Perspectives on Learning
Constructivism is a view of learning centered on the credence that knowledge isn't a contrivance simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students at their desks. Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge.
Constructivism draws on the developmental work of Piaget (1977) and Kelly (1991). TwomeyFosnot (1989) defines constructivism by reference to four principles: learning, in an important way, depends on what we already know; new ideas occur as we adapt and change our old ideas; learning involves inventing ideas rather than mechanically accumulating facts; meaningful learning occurs through rethinking old ideas and coming to new conclusions about new ideas which conflict with our old ideas. A productive, constructivist classroom, then, consists of learner-centered, active instruction. In such a classroom, the teacher provides students with experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions, research, investigate, imagine, and invent. The teacher's role is to facilitate this process.
Piaget (1977) asserts that learning occurs by an active construction of meaning, rather than by passive recipience. He explains that when we, as learners, encounter an experience or a situation that conflicts with our current way of thinking, a state of disequilibrium or imbalance is created. We must then alter our thinking to restore equilibrium or balance. To do this, we make sense of the new information by associating it with what we already know, that is, by attempting to assimilate it into our existing knowledge. When we are unable to do this, we accommodate the new information to our old way of thinking by restructuring our present knowledge to a higher level of thinking.
Similar to this is Kelly's theory of personal constructs (Kelly, 1991). Kelly proposes that we look at the world through mental constructs or patterns which we create. We develop ways of construing or understanding the world based on our experiences. When we encounter a new experience, we attempt to fit these patterns over the new experience. For example, we know from experience that when we see a red traffic light, we are supposed to stop. The point is that we create our own ways of seeing the world in which we live; the world does not create them for us.
Constructivist beliefs have recently been applied to teaching and learning in the classroom.
Educational curricula and teaching methods are changing; one component of the current redevelopment of all subject area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings.
Constructivist teaching nurtures critical thinking and produces active and motivated learners. Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde (1993) state that learning in all subject areas involves inventing and constructing new ideas. They suggest incorporating constructivist theory into a curriculum, and advocate teacher created environments in which children can construct their own understandings. TwomeyFosnot (1989) recommends that a constructivist approach be used to create learners who are autonomous, inquisitive thinkers who question, investigate and reason. A constructivist approach frees teachers to make decisions that will enhance and enrich students' development in these areas. These are goals that are consistent with those stated by Saskatchewan Education in the 1984 government report, directions that launched the restructuring of Saskatchewan's curricula. This demonstrates that constructivism is evident in current educational change.
Phenomenography definitions have a broad germane; some definitions are helpful in narrowing down the spectrum to an accurate shared interpretation of the term. Finding a universal definition has been a real challenge for all discussion groups,where some define Phenomenography as “an empirical research tradition that was designed to answer questions about thinking and learning, especially in the context of educational research, Marton (1986). Others define Phenomenography as “a qualitative research methodology, within the interpretivist paradigm, that investigates the qualitatively different ways in which people experience something or think about something” (Marton, 1984), or as “an approach to educational research that appeared in publications in the early 1980s and initially emerged from an empirical rather than theoretical or philosophical basis” (Wikipedia.org, “Phenomenography”, Åkerlind, 2005).
My over all understanding of Phenomenography is as “the empirical study of the differing ways in which people experience, perceive, apprehend, understand and conceptualize various phenomena in all aspects of the world around us.” (Phenomenography Crossroad, p.4). Conversely, several discussions among peers appeared to point out that phenomenographic research explores what
students learn and how they learn it, which supports the view of Phenomenography as both a research approach and a perspective for understanding learning and teaching.
Unlike Constructivism, Phenomenography does not appear to make many epistemological and philosophical assumptions. Instead, it is presented as an approach to understanding certain dynamics of current attitudes towards teaching and learning.
In Phenomenography learning is based on learners’ awareness of the object of their study. Phenomenographic variation theory views such awareness as the result of the experiencing of variations, which are considered the main building blocks in the learning process. (Marton and Trigwell, 2000)
In The Experience of Learning, Marton et al. propose diverse recommendations for how teachers can improve their understanding of their students’ learning approaches and include such understanding in their teaching practices. I found it very interesting to read about the clear examination of deep and surface learning approaches and its relevance to final learning outcomes. There also appears to be disagreement on the accuracy of such dichotomy, as shown in the articles by Ekeblad and Webb (Ekeblad, 1997; Webb 1997). However, given the ephemerality of the paper, further discourse is impossible.
I am of the belief that Phenomenography as a learning approach plays an important role in understanding the perceptual differences that exist between teachers and students. It offers a way to help students recognize certain aspects of their learning experience, and also assists teachers in making their teaching approaches more attuned to their students’ needs.
This final perspective, Socio-cultural perspective, emerges from the work of Etienne Wenger. It develops as a well-thought and highly structured approach to learning stemming from the social tenets of Constructivism, even though Etienne Wenger explicitly acknowledges that his theory of learning, unlike Constructivism, does not focus on epistemological and philosophical questions but emphasizes instead on its practical applicability. (Wenger, 1999, pp. 9-10)
He views learning as a “fundamentally social phenomenon” (Wenger, 1999, p.3) that emerges from the continuous and intense interplay of several factors at the interface between the frameworks of communities and the practice of their participants. Communities of practice are the setting for such learning. At the community level, learning derives from a shared experience of meaningful identity building enterprises. (Wenger, 1999, Ch. 3)
In his theory, Wenger takes a holistic and systemic approach, which he presents as a relational and situational web of communal and personal scenarios. Learning is the multileveled outcome of active social involvement developing from a complex process that encompasses stages of negotiation, participation and reification through which experiential meaningfulness is attained. (Wenger, 1999, ch.1)
Even though his theory may sound very dry, its step-by-step outline also shows the transformative potential of his model, something that was not specifically addressed in the other perspectives presented in this course, although Marton and Trigwell (2000, p.384, p. 392) recognize the role of participatory learning communities in shaping a learner’s identity.
Wenger’s systemic approach efficiently presents several levels of personal and social interactive participation as ways to promote communities and individuals both at the local and at the global level. Learning, ensures from meaningful community practices that shape the identities of both participants and communities, thereby reinforcing the social value of each learner’s experience. Identity is therefore viewed as trajectory that encompasses several stages of a person’s life and unifies them within the context of an ever evolving learning process. (Wenger, 1999, p. 163)
As earlier explained, Constructivism is concerned with learners’ ability to construct their own reality. Generally, within the three variations of constructivism (cognitive, radical, and social), active interaction between learners and teachers shape the context where learning occurs and knowledge is built. Such interaction must be participatory in nature and collaborative among learners as Constructivism values social interaction in learning by promoting a learner-oriented environment within the context of each learner’s prior experience. Furthermore, in order for learning to occur, the context must be meaningful and must facilitate invention. (Jaeger; Lauritzen, p. 6). In addition, the context in which learning takes place reflects and is heavily based on the learner’s personal and cultural experience, which includes all aspects of a person’s
life. (Cobern, p.1)
Meaning in Constructivism is found in the learner’s ability to construct his/her own reality based on mediated information and social negotiations. As learners are at the forefront of their learning experience, the content of their learning must be relevant to the individual. Doolittle identifies eight tenets that would ensure that learners retain a central position in their own learning. (Doolittle, pp.4-7)
People interpret reality through a process of intersecting, interconnected and self-improving stages of learning. These will include, and are not limited to information acquisition, mental representation, schemata, accreditation (Winn & Snyder, 5.3.1.4), mapping, adaptation. Meaning is arrived at through the interaction of such processes. This appears similar to Marton’s theory of variations. (Marton, 2000)
Within Constructivism, experience may play different roles. Cognitive constructivism, for instance, does not include the subjective nature of knowledge, as learning is based on information processing through which knowledge is arrived at as an extrapolation of an external reality. Nevertheless, in spite of some ontological differences, personal experience and its social dimension maintain a pivotal role in each individual’s learning process, as it provides the background against which new knowledge is measured, understood, and internalized.
In summary, the three dimensions are essentially intertwined and part of one and the same learning process. Learning occurs within the context in which active learners construct new
knowledge and meaning from their experience. Learning must be significant to the learner, who achieves a different level of understanding through a stage of perturbation (von Glaserfeld, 1989, p.6) or dissonance (Jaeger; Lauritzen, p. 6). Thus learning occurs as the result of the dynamic process of interplay between meaning and experience and develops within a context that is both personal and social.
Through the preceding paragraphs as a basis, I will address similarities and differences in the three dimensions of the other two perspectives.
Whereas Constructivism is based on a dualistic view of an external and an internal reality, the phenomenographic perspective does not recognize the dichotomy between a subjectively experienced world and an outer objective reality. The phenomenographic context is therefore the environment in which a learner experiences learning through several stages of variations in the learner’s perceived level of knowledge of a certain subject. (Marton and Trigwell, 2000)
Phenomenographic analysis points out the existing conflict between the personal and institutional aspects of the learning context. This issue is addressed by Charles Andersons in chapter twelve of The Experience of Learning. In my present teaching experience thus far at the College of Technology, Dammam – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I find his argument relevant. At the College, I combine formal teaching and tutorial strategies and it is sometimes challenging to counter the strict academic requirements to the open-ended approach typical of self-directed learning, which is presented as a pivotal part of the institute’s learning experience. It has been noted that students’ perceptions of curricular constrains have an impact on their learning (Paul Ramsden, in Marton at al., 1984, p. 198).
Albeit the learner is seen as the locus of her/his own learning context, Phenomenography seems to lack the social depth typical of Constructivism. If in truth that in both Phenomenography and Constructivism the environment includes the learners’ prior experience, phenomenographic analysis does not appear to cogitate aspects of the human experience such as culture and gender. In VariatioEst Mater Studiorum, Marton and Trigwell (2000) mention the importance of learning communities as loci for identity formation, but do not specifically address the role of cultural differences this, I believe impacts person’s learning experience. If phenomenographic research does not address fundamental cultural differences among students, by restricting the scope of the inquiry only to certain aspects, would that not invalidate the applicability of the findings?
In Phenomenography meaning is derived from the relationship between a learner and the world. Unlike Constructivism, where the mind constructs its understanding of reality, Phenomenography views knowledge as the result of a relational connection between a learner and the world (Hales & Watkins, 2004, p.4, p.6). Meaning is arrived at individually by each learner within his own learning environment.
According to Hales and Watkins meaning varies among individuals and within each learner on three levels: 1) The meaningful combination of the components of an experience; 2) How
awareness organizes them; 3) “How the phenomenon is delimited from other phenomena.” (2004, p.6) This approach emphasizes the very personal nature of each learner’s experience, where meaning is postulated as a process linked to subjective awareness. This differs greatly from the social nature of learning found in Constructivism and also from the collaborative learning approach outlined in the socio-cultural perspective.
As earlier mentioned, the three dimensions are actually interconnected. Both in Phenomenography and Constructivism personal experience stands at the epicenter of individual learners’ learning and is the medium for the development of meaning, knowledge and understanding. Phenomenography recognizes five levels on which experience develops: 1) Increase in knowledge, 2) Memorization, 3) Fact acquisition, 4) Abstraction of meaning, 5) Understanding reality. Whereas intrinsic motivation seems to improve the effectiveness of learning leading to a deep approach, external concerns may limit the value of learning and lead to a surface approach. (Marton and Säljö, in Marton et al., 1984, Ch. 3) Such scheme falls short of including the stage of personal transformation that undeniably affects each learner as a result of perturbation and dissonance that – as mentioned above – are the supporting building blocks of personal learning experience.
I reason that although both Constructivism and Phenomenography value the learner’s experience, in Phenomenography experience appears to be more strictly interpreted, possibly due to the influence of institutional concerns on phenomenographic analysis.
In the Socio-cultural perspective communities of practice are the context in which learning occurs. Due to the stratification of experience over time, the environment becomes highly socialized and contextualized. While the three approaches do not properly address the influence of cultural issues on the learning experience, the Socio-cultural perspective presents a fairly detailed description of how a community of practice is constantly constructing and revising its own cultural patterns. In this sense, Wenger’s approach implicitly recognizes the formative relevance of high-context within the process of community building, (Hall, 1976)[1].
“Practice is about meaning as an experience in everyday life.” (Wenger, 1999, p.52) In other words, this perspective views meaning as a direct derivation of daily experiential practice. Meaning entails both interpretation and action, and stems from both active personal participation in a social enterprise and the relevant production of relics called reification. The actual source of meaning is the continuing interaction between these two dynamics within the context of a community of practice. The two aspects complement and support one another.
Compared with the other two perspectives, this one appears to recognize that meaning is contextualized within each community experience and that the level of variation found in human initiatives will ensure an ever-changing, stimulating evolution in human cultures, personal experience and stages of learning, and eventually in the acquisition and elaboration of knowledge.
Experience lies at the core of this perspective and informs each individual’s process of learning within the context of a community initiative. In the Socio-cultural perspective experience
surpasses the role assigned to it in Constructivism and Phenomenography, where it is considered a means towards knowledge acquisition. Experience becomes the conditio sine qua non without which learning would not be possible. It is more than a means; it is part of learning itself.
In my opinion, Wenger’s approach appears quintessentially experiential and collaborative, as if no learning were possible outside the framework of a community of practice. Such perspective, conversely, minimizes and misconstrues the latency for individual emancipation, growth, learning and ultimately affirmation outside the community settings envisioned by Wenger. I believe that a learner, lacking the option to meaningfully participate in a community of practice, is still capable of engaging in forms of learning that would eventually increase his/her understanding of the world.
References
Åkerlind, G.S. (2002).
Åkerlind, G. (2005).
Anderson, M. (nd).
Cobern, W. W. (1993).
Doolittle, P. (2000)
Ekeblad, E. (1997).
Glasersfeld, E. von (1989)
Gullestrup, H. (2007).
Hales, R. & Mike Watkins, M. (2004)
Hall, E. T. (1976).
Jaeger, M; Lauritzen, C. (1992)
Kelly, G.A. (1991).
Marton, F., Hounsell, D., &Entwistle, N. J. (1984).
Marton, F., &Trigwell, K. (2000).
Piaget, J. (1977).
Smith, M. K. (2003)
Ting-Toomey, S. (1985),
Traynor, D. (nd).
TwomeyFosnot, C. (1989).
Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (1993).
Constructivism is a view of learning centered on the credence that knowledge isn't a contrivance simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students at their desks. Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge.
Educational curricula and teaching methods are changing; one component of the current redevelopment of all subject area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings.
Comparing Theoretic Perspectives on Learning
Constructivism is a view of learning centered on the credence that knowledge isn't a contrivance simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students at their desks. Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge.
Constructivism draws on the developmental work of Piaget (1977) and Kelly (1991). TwomeyFosnot (1989) defines constructivism by reference to four principles: learning, in an important way, depends on what we already know; new ideas occur as we adapt and change our old ideas; learning involves inventing ideas rather than mechanically accumulating facts; meaningful learning occurs through rethinking old ideas and coming to new conclusions about new ideas which conflict with our old ideas. A productive, constructivist classroom, then, consists of learner-centered, active instruction. In such a classroom, the teacher provides students with experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions, research, investigate, imagine, and invent. The teacher's role is to facilitate this process.
Piaget (1977) asserts that learning occurs by an active construction of meaning, rather than by passive recipience. He explains that when we, as learners, encounter an experience or a situation that conflicts with our current way of thinking, a state of disequilibrium or imbalance is created. We must then alter our thinking to restore equilibrium or balance. To do this, we make sense of the new information by associating it with what we already know, that is, by attempting to assimilate it into our existing knowledge. When we are unable to do this, we accommodate the new information to our old way of thinking by restructuring our present knowledge to a higher level of thinking.
Similar to this is Kelly's theory of personal constructs (Kelly, 1991). Kelly proposes that we look at the world through mental constructs or patterns which we create. We develop ways of construing or understanding the world based on our experiences. When we encounter a new experience, we attempt to fit these patterns over the new experience. For example, we know from experience that when we see a red traffic light, we are supposed to stop. The point is that we create our own ways of seeing the world in which we live; the world does not create them for us.
Constructivist beliefs have recently been applied to teaching and learning in the classroom.
Educational curricula and teaching methods are changing; one component of the current redevelopment of all subject area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings.
Constructivist teaching nurtures critical thinking and produces active and motivated learners. Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde (1993) state that learning in all subject areas involves inventing and constructing new ideas. They suggest incorporating constructivist theory into a curriculum, and advocate teacher created environments in which children can construct their own understandings. TwomeyFosnot (1989) recommends that a constructivist approach be used to create learners who are autonomous, inquisitive thinkers who question, investigate and reason. A constructivist approach frees teachers to make decisions that will enhance and enrich students' development in these areas. These are goals that are consistent with those stated by Saskatchewan Education in the 1984 government report, directions that launched the restructuring of Saskatchewan's curricula. This demonstrates that constructivism is evident in current educational change.
Phenomenography definitions have a broad germane; some definitions are helpful in narrowing down the spectrum to an accurate shared interpretation of the term. Finding a universal definition has been a real challenge for all discussion groups,where some define Phenomenography as “an empirical research tradition that was designed to answer questions about thinking and learning, especially in the context of educational research, Marton (1986). Others define Phenomenography as “a qualitative research methodology, within the interpretivist paradigm, that investigates the qualitatively different ways in which people experience something or think about something” (Marton, 1984), or as “an approach to educational research that appeared in publications in the early 1980s and initially emerged from an empirical rather than theoretical or philosophical basis” (Wikipedia.org, “Phenomenography”, Åkerlind, 2005).
My over all understanding of Phenomenography is as “the empirical study of the differing ways in which people experience, perceive, apprehend, understand and conceptualize various phenomena in all aspects of the world around us.” (Phenomenography Crossroad, p.4). Conversely, several discussions among peers appeared to point out that phenomenographic research explores what
students learn and how they learn it, which supports the view of Phenomenography as both a research approach and a perspective for understanding learning and teaching.
Unlike Constructivism, Phenomenography does not appear to make many epistemological and philosophical assumptions. Instead, it is presented as an approach to understanding certain dynamics of current attitudes towards teaching and learning.
In Phenomenography learning is based on learners’ awareness of the object of their study. Phenomenographic variation theory views such awareness as the result of the experiencing of variations, which are considered the main building blocks in the learning process. (Marton and Trigwell, 2000)
In The Experience of Learning, Marton et al. propose diverse recommendations for how teachers can improve their understanding of their students’ learning approaches and include such understanding in their teaching practices. I found it very interesting to read about the clear examination of deep and surface learning approaches and its relevance to final learning outcomes. There also appears to be disagreement on the accuracy of such dichotomy, as shown in the articles by Ekeblad and Webb (Ekeblad, 1997; Webb 1997). However, given the ephemerality of the paper, further discourse is impossible.
I am of the belief that Phenomenography as a learning approach plays an important role in understanding the perceptual differences that exist between teachers and students. It offers a way to help students recognize certain aspects of their learning experience, and also assists teachers in making their teaching approaches more attuned to their students’ needs.
This final perspective, Socio-cultural perspective, emerges from the work of Etienne Wenger. It develops as a well-thought and highly structured approach to learning stemming from the social tenets of Constructivism, even though Etienne Wenger explicitly acknowledges that his theory of learning, unlike Constructivism, does not focus on epistemological and philosophical questions but emphasizes instead on its practical applicability. (Wenger, 1999, pp. 9-10)
He views learning as a “fundamentally social phenomenon” (Wenger, 1999, p.3) that emerges from the continuous and intense interplay of several factors at the interface between the frameworks of communities and the practice of their participants. Communities of practice are the setting for such learning. At the community level, learning derives from a shared experience of meaningful identity building enterprises. (Wenger, 1999, Ch. 3)
In his theory, Wenger takes a holistic and systemic approach, which he presents as a relational and situational web of communal and personal scenarios. Learning is the multileveled outcome of active social involvement developing from a complex process that encompasses stages of negotiation, participation and reification through which experiential meaningfulness is attained. (Wenger, 1999, ch.1)
Even though his theory may sound very dry, its step-by-step outline also shows the transformative potential of his model, something that was not specifically addressed in the other perspectives presented in this course, although Marton and Trigwell (2000, p.384, p. 392) recognize the role of participatory learning communities in shaping a learner’s identity.
Wenger’s systemic approach efficiently presents several levels of personal and social interactive participation as ways to promote communities and individuals both at the local and at the global level. Learning, ensures from meaningful community practices that shape the identities of both participants and communities, thereby reinforcing the social value of each learner’s experience. Identity is therefore viewed as trajectory that encompasses several stages of a person’s life and unifies them within the context of an ever evolving learning process. (Wenger, 1999, p. 163)
As earlier explained, Constructivism is concerned with learners’ ability to construct their own reality. Generally, within the three variations of constructivism (cognitive, radical, and social), active interaction between learners and teachers shape the context where learning occurs and knowledge is built. Such interaction must be participatory in nature and collaborative among learners as Constructivism values social interaction in learning by promoting a learner-oriented environment within the context of each learner’s prior experience. Furthermore, in order for learning to occur, the context must be meaningful and must facilitate invention. (Jaeger; Lauritzen, p. 6). In addition, the context in which learning takes place reflects and is heavily based on the learner’s personal and cultural experience, which includes all aspects of a person’s
life. (Cobern, p.1)
Meaning in Constructivism is found in the learner’s ability to construct his/her own reality based on mediated information and social negotiations. As learners are at the forefront of their learning experience, the content of their learning must be relevant to the individual. Doolittle identifies eight tenets that would ensure that learners retain a central position in their own learning. (Doolittle, pp.4-7)
People interpret reality through a process of intersecting, interconnected and self-improving stages of learning. These will include, and are not limited to information acquisition, mental representation, schemata, accreditation (Winn & Snyder, 5.3.1.4), mapping, adaptation. Meaning is arrived at through the interaction of such processes. This appears similar to Marton’s theory of variations. (Marton, 2000)
Within Constructivism, experience may play different roles. Cognitive constructivism, for instance, does not include the subjective nature of knowledge, as learning is based on information processing through which knowledge is arrived at as an extrapolation of an external reality. Nevertheless, in spite of some ontological differences, personal experience and its social dimension maintain a pivotal role in each individual’s learning process, as it provides the background against which new knowledge is measured, understood, and internalized.
In summary, the three dimensions are essentially intertwined and part of one and the same learning process. Learning occurs within the context in which active learners construct new
knowledge and meaning from their experience. Learning must be significant to the learner, who achieves a different level of understanding through a stage of perturbation (von Glaserfeld, 1989, p.6) or dissonance (Jaeger; Lauritzen, p. 6). Thus learning occurs as the result of the dynamic process of interplay between meaning and experience and develops within a context that is both personal and social.
Through the preceding paragraphs as a basis, I will address similarities and differences in the three dimensions of the other two perspectives.
Whereas Constructivism is based on a dualistic view of an external and an internal reality, the phenomenographic perspective does not recognize the dichotomy between a subjectively experienced world and an outer objective reality. The phenomenographic context is therefore the environment in which a learner experiences learning through several stages of variations in the learner’s perceived level of knowledge of a certain subject. (Marton and Trigwell, 2000)
Phenomenographic analysis points out the existing conflict between the personal and institutional aspects of the learning context. This issue is addressed by Charles Andersons in chapter twelve of The Experience of Learning. In my present teaching experience thus far at the College of Technology, Dammam – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I find his argument relevant. At the College, I combine formal teaching and tutorial strategies and it is sometimes challenging to counter the strict academic requirements to the open-ended approach typical of self-directed learning, which is presented as a pivotal part of the institute’s learning experience. It has been noted that students’ perceptions of curricular constrains have an impact on their learning (Paul Ramsden, in Marton at al., 1984, p. 198).
Albeit the learner is seen as the locus of her/his own learning context, Phenomenography seems to lack the social depth typical of Constructivism. If in truth that in both Phenomenography and Constructivism the environment includes the learners’ prior experience, phenomenographic analysis does not appear to cogitate aspects of the human experience such as culture and gender. In VariatioEst Mater Studiorum, Marton and Trigwell (2000) mention the importance of learning communities as loci for identity formation, but do not specifically address the role of cultural differences this, I believe impacts person’s learning experience. If phenomenographic research does not address fundamental cultural differences among students, by restricting the scope of the inquiry only to certain aspects, would that not invalidate the applicability of the findings?
In Phenomenography meaning is derived from the relationship between a learner and the world. Unlike Constructivism, where the mind constructs its understanding of reality, Phenomenography views knowledge as the result of a relational connection between a learner and the world (Hales & Watkins, 2004, p.4, p.6). Meaning is arrived at individually by each learner within his own learning environment.
According to Hales and Watkins meaning varies among individuals and within each learner on three levels: 1) The meaningful combination of the components of an experience; 2) How
awareness organizes them; 3) “How the phenomenon is delimited from other phenomena.” (2004, p.6) This approach emphasizes the very personal nature of each learner’s experience, where meaning is postulated as a process linked to subjective awareness. This differs greatly from the social nature of learning found in Constructivism and also from the collaborative learning approach outlined in the socio-cultural perspective.
As earlier mentioned, the three dimensions are actually interconnected. Both in Phenomenography and Constructivism personal experience stands at the epicenter of individual learners’ learning and is the medium for the development of meaning, knowledge and understanding. Phenomenography recognizes five levels on which experience develops: 1) Increase in knowledge, 2) Memorization, 3) Fact acquisition, 4) Abstraction of meaning, 5) Understanding reality. Whereas intrinsic motivation seems to improve the effectiveness of learning leading to a deep approach, external concerns may limit the value of learning and lead to a surface approach. (Marton and Säljö, in Marton et al., 1984, Ch. 3) Such scheme falls short of including the stage of personal transformation that undeniably affects each learner as a result of perturbation and dissonance that – as mentioned above – are the supporting building blocks of personal learning experience.
I reason that although both Constructivism and Phenomenography value the learner’s experience, in Phenomenography experience appears to be more strictly interpreted, possibly due to the influence of institutional concerns on phenomenographic analysis.
In the Socio-cultural perspective communities of practice are the context in which learning occurs. Due to the stratification of experience over time, the environment becomes highly socialized and contextualized. While the three approaches do not properly address the influence of cultural issues on the learning experience, the Socio-cultural perspective presents a fairly detailed description of how a community of practice is constantly constructing and revising its own cultural patterns. In this sense, Wenger’s approach implicitly recognizes the formative relevance of high-context within the process of community building, (Hall, 1976)[1].
“Practice is about meaning as an experience in everyday life.” (Wenger, 1999, p.52) In other words, this perspective views meaning as a direct derivation of daily experiential practice. Meaning entails both interpretation and action, and stems from both active personal participation in a social enterprise and the relevant production of relics called reification. The actual source of meaning is the continuing interaction between these two dynamics within the context of a community of practice. The two aspects complement and support one another.
Compared with the other two perspectives, this one appears to recognize that meaning is contextualized within each community experience and that the level of variation found in human initiatives will ensure an ever-changing, stimulating evolution in human cultures, personal experience and stages of learning, and eventually in the acquisition and elaboration of knowledge.
Experience lies at the core of this perspective and informs each individual’s process of learning within the context of a community initiative. In the Socio-cultural perspective experience
surpasses the role assigned to it in Constructivism and Phenomenography, where it is considered a means towards knowledge acquisition. Experience becomes the conditio sine qua non without which learning would not be possible. It is more than a means; it is part of learning itself.
In my opinion, Wenger’s approach appears quintessentially experiential and collaborative, as if no learning were possible outside the framework of a community of practice. Such perspective, conversely, minimizes and misconstrues the latency for individual emancipation, growth, learning and ultimately affirmation outside the community settings envisioned by Wenger. I believe that a learner, lacking the option to meaningfully participate in a community of practice, is still capable of engaging in forms of learning that would eventually increase his/her understanding of the world.
References
Åkerlind, G.S. (2002).
Åkerlind, G. (2005).
Anderson, M. (nd).
Cobern, W. W. (1993).
Doolittle, P. (2000)
Ekeblad, E. (1997).
Glasersfeld, E. von (1989)
Gullestrup, H. (2007).
Hales, R. & Mike Watkins, M. (2004)
Hall, E. T. (1976).
Jaeger, M; Lauritzen, C. (1992)
Kelly, G.A. (1991).
Marton, F., Hounsell, D., &Entwistle, N. J. (1984).
Marton, F., &Trigwell, K. (2000).
Piaget, J. (1977).
Smith, M. K. (2003)
Ting-Toomey, S. (1985),
Traynor, D. (nd).
TwomeyFosnot, C. (1989).
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