What is Social Constructionism?

Moodle is based on social constructionism which is its pedagogy (‘Moodle.org: About Moodle, Pedagogy’)

Crotty (1998) helps with the constructionism part stating that meaning is ‘constructed by human beings as they engage with the world they are interpreting’ (p. 42). Grix (2002) deals with the social aspect saying ‘social phenomena and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors’ (p. 177). The idea emerges that meaning isn’t fixed, but something that people are continually generating and that meaning has a strong social aspect. It is from this epistemological basis that the theoretical perspective of social constructivism arises.

Social constructivism in the educational setting is about active meaning making (Jordan, 2008) and the social component is derived from interaction between peers and teachers (Huang, 2002). Jordan (2008) also tells us that ‘knowledge is constructed in the context of the environment in which it is encountered’ (p. 59) which indicates that learning has a strong contextual nature. The social and contextual nature of social constructivism gives rise to a general consensus that it promotes authentic learning (Murphy et al, 2005; Ruey, 2010).
The reason that the authenticity of the learning experience is attractive to an elearning practitioner is that it encourages self-direction and reflection on the part of learners (Huang, 2002). Maor (2001) agrees with this position seeing active collaboration, reflection, interaction and negotiation and self-direction as the fundamentals of social constructivist learning. The themes of collaboration, collective goal setting, student empowerment and self-direction matched with strong facilitation are widespread in the literature (Ruey, 2010).
Successful online social constructivist education requires strong facilitation (Huang, 2002; Maor, 2001; Murphy et al, 2005; Ruey, 2010). According to Huang (2002) and Murphy et al. (2005) the role of the teacher changes from that of the expert imparting knowledge to that of a facilitator. The role of the learner also evolves from that of an inactive receiver of information to an active creator of knowledge with the learner becoming more self-disciplined and responsible (Ruey, 2010).

As an elearning practitioner the notion of empowered, self-directed, interacting, reflective learners is very attractive and the decision to use a technology which purports to support this is intuitive. This is a big shift for a Government Department and change management policy will be needed to help facilitate the change.

References

Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research : meaning and perspective in the research process. London; Thousand Oaks  Calif.: Sage Publications.

Grix, J. (2002). Introducing Students to the Generic Terminology of Social Research. Politics, 22(3), 175–186. doi:10.1111/1467-9256.00173

Huang, H.-M. (2002). Toward constructivism for adult learners in online learning environments. British Journal of Educational Technology, 33(1), 27–37. doi:10.1111/1467-8535.00236

Jordan, A. (2008). Approaches to learning : a guide for teachers. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Maor, D. (2001). The Teacher’s Role in Developing Interaction and Reflection in an Online Learning Community.Educational Media International, 40(1), 127–138. doi:10.1080/0952398032000092170

Murphy, K., Mahoney, S., Chen, C., Mendoza‐Diaz, N., & Yang, X. (2005). A Constructivist Model of Mentoring, Coaching, and Facilitating Online Discussions. Distance Education, 26(3), 341–366. doi:10.1080/01587910500291454

Ruey, S. (2010). A case study of constructivist instructional strategies for adult online learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), 706–720. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00965.x