Educational technology pedagogy a looseness of ﬁt between learning theories and pedagogy by Matthew Roberts

Education As Change, Volume 14, No. 2, December 2010, pp. 273–287

Educational technology pedagogy: A looseness of ﬁt between learning theories and pedagogy Shaheeda Jaffer School of Education, University of Cape Town Abstract Bernstein’s (1996: 2000) typology of pedagogy as competence and performance pedagogic modalities provides a productive lens for the analysis of different modalities of educational technology pedagogy. The question addressed in this paper is why theories of learning and pedagogy have become conﬂated in educational technology literature. The paper illustrates that behavioural and cognitive psychologybased pedagogy corresponds to Bernstein’s performance pedagogic modality and constructivist educational technology pedagogy corresponds to Bernstein’s competence pedagogic modality. The paper shows how concepts, which surfaced initially in the discourse of psychology and particularly in learning theories, have been taken up and recontextualised. Furthermore the paper, using Bernstein’s notion of the ‘social logic’ underlying pedagogies, demonstrates why learning theories, particularly that of cognitive constructivism, have appealed to pedagogic constructivists and come to dominate educational technology research and practice. Key words: educational technology, pedagogy, learning theories

Introduction Several reviews of theories underlying educational technology tools and pedagogic activities have been presented in the literature (see for example Wilson 1995; Hung 2001; Ravenscroft 2001; Ally 2004; Conole, Dyke, Oliver, and Seale 2004; Mayes and De Freitas 2004; Dyke, Conole, Ravenscroft and De Freitas 2007). While some reviews argue for a move from behaviourist pedagogy (instructivism) to cognitive constructivist pedagogy (Wilson 1995) or promote a social constructivist-inspired pedagogy instead of a cognitive constructivist pedagogy (Ravenscroft 2001), others remain theoretically polytheistic, preferring to develop models that accommodate any learning theory (Conole et al. 2004; Ally 2004; Hung 2001). Underpinning these reviews is an unquestioning acceptance of learning theories as the basis for educational technology pedagogy. This paper problematises the relationship between learning theories and educational technology pedagogy. Learning theories explain how individuals learn while pedagogy describes the roles of teachers and learners, the relationship between them and the kinds of teaching and learning activities they engage in. The central object of the study of learning theories thus differs from that of pedagogy. This paper illustrates the looseness of ﬁt between learning theories and pedagogy in the educational technology literature. Reviews, particularly those of Ravenscroft (2001) and Wilson (1995), give the impression that educational technology pedagogy has gradually transformed from instructivism to cognitive constructivism and now social constructivism. They attribute changes in pedagogies to strong movements within education as well as technological developments. Czerniewicz (2007), on the other hand, illustrates that two dominant

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positions exist concurrently in the field. On the one side are the protagonists of pedagogy underpinned by theories from behavioural and cognitive psychology, and on the other side are the proponents of educational technology pedagogy inspired by varieties of constructivism. These two forms of pedagogy can be characterised as performance and competence modes of pedagogy as identified by (Bernstein 2000). Performance pedagogies emphasise deficits in students’ knowledge, and students are stratified according to performance subject to grading by the teacher. Performance pedagogies are not concerned with the specific nature of individual students; are explicit about what students are expected to know; and the control of teaching and learning is explicit. Performance pedagogy is considered a visible pedagogy since the evaluative criteria (i.e., criteria that differentiate legitimate from inappropriate knowledge statements) and the control over pedagogy (i.e., the teacher as an authority) are made explicit to the student. In contrast to performance pedagogies, the nature of the individual student is central to competence pedagogies and individual differences as opposed to deficits in knowledge are emphasised. The attainment of the individual’s innate competence rather than performance is the object of this form of pedagogy. Students are distinguished by their individual differences and creativity rather than stratified according to performance. The role of the teacher is that of manager of the learning context, and students actively construct meaning for themselves. Competence pedagogy is considered an invisible pedagogy since both the evaluative criteria and the control over pedagogy are implicit. This paper starts by examining the behavioural and cognitive psychology roots of educational technology pedagogy, then moves to consider cognitive as well as social constructivist-inspired educational technology pedagogy. The underlying logic of each form of pedagogy is examined in order to understand why theories of learning have come to play such a dominant role in educational technology pedagogy. The bulk of the literature in the field can be characterised as weakly theorised and is practice-based, mainly taking the form of narrative descriptions of ‘here’s what I did in my classroom’ or ‘this is what you should do in your classroom’. Consequently, the main sources for this paper are selected key texts in the field of educational technology. The selection is illustrative rather than all-encompassing, attempting to provide a sense of the major pedagogic theories in the field. The selected texts include books and articles generated by Robert Gagné and the US-based Instructional Design Research Group, Papert’s (1980) Mindstorms, Anderson’s (2004) Toward a theory of online learning, and Downes’s (2005) E-learning 2.0.

The discourse of instructivism In this section I examine the discourse of instructivist pedagogy by focusing on the underpinning pedagogic theories of instructional design. Firstly Gagné’s contribution to instructional design is presented, followed by discussion on the use of his ideas by Instructional Design Research Group (a US based research entity). Critiques of this form of instructional design conclude this section. Instructional design – the influence of behaviourism and cognitive psychology The birth of instructional design in the mid 1960s is attributed to Gagné, whose influential book, The conditions of learning (1966), forms the foundation of current work in the area of instructional design. Gagné set out to develop an understanding of what learning is, in the belief that an understanding of learning will enable improvements in the design of teaching. His work was initially shaped by the theories of the behavioural psychologists Skinner, Thorndike and Pavlov. The behavioural psychology roots of instructional design are evident in Gagné s definition of learning: 274

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The kind of change called learning exhibits itself as a change in behaviour, and the inference of learning is made by comparing what behaviour was possible before the individual was placed in a “learning situation” and what behaviour can be exhibited after such treatment. (Gagné 1966: 5) In the 1970s, Gagné supplemented his initial interest in behavioural psychology with cognitive psychology and information processing theory as the basis of instructional design. He shifted his attention from describing pedagogy solely in terms of behaviour change to developing a pedagogy which linked internal cognitive structures to external design of instructional environments. The process Gagné followed can briefly be described as follows: Firstly, he identified a number of desired ‘capabilities’ or learning outcomes (intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, verbal information, motor skills and attitudes) to be acquired by individuals. Secondly, for each learning outcome, he identified ‘events of learning’ that are ‘factors that make a difference to instruction’ (Gagné 1985: xiv). These ‘learning events’ were based on models of learning and memory derived from cognitive psychology and information processing theory. ‘Learning events’ comprise both internal and external conditions of learning. The internal conditions of learning are essentially previously acquired concepts and skills and the mental processes and structures used by the learner to develop new concepts and skills based on the recall of prior skills. The external conditions of learning take the form of instruction designed for the acquisition of particular learning outcomes. Merril, Drake, Lacy, Pratt and Group (1996) and Reigeluth (1999) as part of the Instructional Design Research group extended Gagné’s ideas to the design of computer-based courseware or ‘drill-and practice’ computer-based programs. The knowledge expected of students is made explicit through clearly articulated learning goals. Content is selected and sequenced to facilitate memorisation and recall of information. Thus the selection and sequencing of content is controlled by the ‘teacher’ (computer program designer). Evaluative criteria are made explicit to students through programmed immediate feedback on correct or incorrect responses. Feedback functions to modify students’ behaviour, reinforcing correct behaviour. The student’s acquisition of content is graded by the ‘teacher’/computer programmer and students are stratified according to their performance. The above discussion illustrates that the instructional design underpinning ‘drill and practice’ computerbased software is based on concepts rooted in behavioural and cognitive psychology. These concepts have been recontextualised into features of pedagogy that matches Bernstein’s performance pedagogic modality because it makes explicit what students are expected to know and stratifies students on the basis of performance. Critiques of instructional design Behaviourist-rooted pedagogy is accused by constructivists of being authoritarian rather than progressive, teacher-centred as opposed to learner-centred, encouraging passive learning instead of active learning and focusing on transmission teaching rather than discovery learning (McCarty and Schwandt 2000). Furthermore, Gagné’s instructional design theory lacks an empirical basis since he relied on studies conducted within behavioural and cognitive psychology experimental settings. In those experiments, learning components were isolated in order to identify how the human brain functions. Gagné then assumed that the identified learning components could be transferred unproblematically to pedagogic contexts where learning components exist concurrently rather than in isolation (Laurillard 1993). Despite criticisms of behaviourist pedagogy, instructional design as spawned by Gagné and developed further by his followers in the Instructional Design Research Group continues to thrive in spite of the rise and challenge of constructivism. Gagné’s influence on current educational technology practice is acknowledged in recent literature (Elen and Clarebout 2001; Merrill 2002). There is a growing interest in 275

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investigating constructivist approaches to instructional design (Duffy and Jonassen 1992; Wilson 1997). Within the discourse of instructional design a tension remains between the behaviourist/cognitivist tradition and the constructivist tradition. In the next section, I look more closely at the inﬂuence of constructivism on educational technology pedagogy.

The discourse of constructivism Constructivists such as Duffy and Jonassen (1992) argue that behaviourist pedagogy of online learning environments or pedagogic resources which focus on the presentation of content and mastering, memorisation and recalling of content is outdated given the rapid explosion of information. They claim that it is no longer possible or desirable for individuals to memorise all the available information within a particular disciplinary domain. Furthermore technological developments have opened up new pedagogic opportunities enabling curriculum designers to consider constructivist principles in the design of educational technology learning environments or resources (Duffy and Jonassen 1992: ix). Constructivist-inspired educational technology pedagogy has its roots in Piagetian and Vygotskian psychology and in the neo-Vygotskian theories of Lave and Wenger’s situated cognition within communities of practice. Cognitive constructivism constitutes a theory of how learners construct meanings or understandings individually. The central interest of cognitive constructivism is a psychological understanding of the individual learner. Kant and Piaget are the main theoretical antecedents of modern cognitive constructivism. Social constructivists focus on individual learning or construction but maintain that learning is socially inﬂuenced. For Vygotsky, language and culture, which are social phenomena, shape individual knowledge construction. The psychological constructivism of Piaget and Vygotsky is distinct from what Dowling (1998) calls ‘pedagogic constructivism’. Concepts take on different meanings as the discourse of psychological constructivism is transformed into the discourse of pedagogic constructivism. There is a close similarity between pedagogic constructivism and progressive education. Dewey, the main progressive education theorist, based his pedagogy on a constructivist learning theory. Progressive education advocates active discovery learning and stresses the notion of learner-centredness (Phillips 2000). Below, I examine three examples of pedagogic constructivism. Firstly, I consider LOGO, a programming language developed by Papert (1980), followed by an examination of Anderson’s (2004) theory of online learning. Thirdly, I analyse Downes’s (2005) E-learning 2.0. In each case, I will attempt to show how concepts from psychological constructivism are recruited by the pedagogic constructivists outlined above and how the pedagogy corresponds to Bernstein’s competence pedagogic modality. Finally, I conclude this section by considering critiques of pedagogic constructivism. Papert’s LOGO – inﬂuence of cognitive constructivism Papert was opposed to drill-and-practice computer programs with their associated behaviourist pedagogy promoted by the Instructional Design Research group. In his opinion, drill-and-practice computer programs can be described as the computer ‘teaching’ the student. Inspired by Piaget’s cognitive constructivism, Papert developed LOGO (a programming language) as a learning tool to be used by students to ’teach’ the computer. For Piaget, the development of knowledge or learning is a biological process. He believed that individuals construct meaning for themselves through continuous interaction and experience with the environment. Individuals possess cognitive structures which change with experience. The mind primarily perceives and categorises experience in terms of what is already known. This process is called assimilation. The perception and categorisation of new experience creates a perturbation or state of disequilibrium. The 276

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individual seeks to attain a state of equilibrium, which leads to changes in the cognitive structure to fit the experience or environment better. This process of adapting new experiences to existing cognitive structures is called accommodation (Piaget 1972). Drawing on Piaget’s theory of learning, LOGO encouraged active individualised learning which enabled individual students to construct their own knowledge without being explicitly taught by the teacher (Papert 1980). With LOGO, students develop their own computer procedures or microworlds as a way of investigating mathematical problems. They are able to observe the effects of their procedures as displays on computer screens which serve as feedback, therefore enabling the construction of meaning for themselves. Papert’s ideas in Mindstorms echoed those of progressive educators who implemented LOGO in progressive education classrooms ( Agalianos, Noss, and Whitty 2001). Papert’s pedagogy is typical of Bernstein’s competence pedagogic modality in which the teacher is the manager of the learning context and individual students actively construct meaning for themselves. Students demonstrate their competence through the creativity of their computer program and are distinguished by differences in the computer program design rather than by a lack of knowledge. Papert’s pedagogy raised problems in classroom applications of LOGO. Teachers found that students had difficulty coping with the syntax of the programming language and interpreting the feedback comments given in the same syntax. In fact, the use of LOGO as a learning tool led educators to question what students were actually learning. It appeared that students were learning to think in a “‘LOGO way’ only about LOGO itself” rather than learning mathematics or physics (Ravenscroft 2001). Hoyles and Noss (1992) described LOGO mathematics and school mathematics as two distinct discursive practices. They concluded that teacher intervention is necessary ‘to move pupils from Logo-mathematics to schoolmathematics’ (Hoyles and Noss 1992). Thus the use of LOGO in classrooms required more intervention and guidance from the teacher than Papert had envisioned. LOGO is comparable to the use of other concrete apparatus such as Cuisenaire rods for teaching early number concepts and Nicolet’s geometric films which Piaget himself criticised as contradicting his theory of learning. According to Piaget, concrete apparatus encodes the structure in the empirical rather than in the individual (Piaget 1972). Piaget distinguished between two types of ‘experience’ – ‘physical experience’ and ‘logico-mathematical experience’. Physical experience entails ‘acting on objects in order to discover the properties of the objects themselves’ whereas ‘logico-mathematical experience’ involves deriving knowledge from the actions performed on objects rather than from the objects themselves (Piaget 1977b). Piaget maintained that it is logico-mathematical experience that is required for the development of deductive and abstract thought. A common misconception of educators is to interpret the activity of students as physical activity or concrete rather than as ‘interior and abstract reflection’ (Piaget 1977b: 714). Furthermore, educators construe activity involving objects as a ‘figurative’ process i.e., ‘a way of producing a precise copy in perception or mental image of the objects’ (Piaget 1977a). The use of concrete apparatus therefore constitutes an empiricist view of knowledge. Piaget however classified his theory as a-prioristic rather than empiricist (Piaget 1972:90) in that he maintained that the structures of knowledge lie in the individual rather than in physical objects. It is the individual’s actions on objects that results in knowledge construction. Papert’s recruitment of Piaget’s theory therefore represents a recontextualisation of Piagetian psychology and is illustrative of the transformation of concepts as they move from psychological constructivism to pedagogic constructivism. As discussed above, Papert’s pedagogy is a form of Bernstein’s competence pedagogy. Below I discuss Anderson’s online learning theory – another example of pedagogic constructivism or competence pedagogy. 277

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Anderson’s online learning theory – the inﬂuence of social constructivism Premised on an understanding of how people learn in general and the unique characteristics of online learning environments, Anderson (2004) developed a model of online learning that highlights the different forms of interaction crucial to the teaching and learning process. Four overlapping themes frame Anderson’s model of online learning. Firstly, online learning should be learner-centred which implies ‘an awareness of the unique cognitive structures and understandings that learners bring to the learning context’ (Anderson 2004). Secondly, online learning should be knowledgecentred; this refers to the importance and availability of content which students engage with through discovery in order to build their own knowledge but with guidance from the teacher. The internet’s capacity for hyperlinking promotes individual discovery and construction of knowledge. Thirdly, Anderson stresses the importance of the assessment-centredness of online learning with an emphasis on formative assessment as a means of providing feedback to students and teachers. Fourthly, online learning must be community-centred in that collaborative student learning and the development of communities of practice are emphasised. Interaction is a key concept in Anderson’s model of learning which consists of three components: student, teacher and content. Interactions between these three components result in six forms of interaction: student-student, student-teacher, student-content, teacher-teacher, teacher-content, content-content. Anderson extends his model of learning in general to online learning as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: A model of online learning showing types of interaction (from Anderson 2004:49) 278

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Although Anderson attempts to develop a model as a step towards formulating a theory of online learning, he does not focus on how individuals learn or come to know in online learning environments. His model is more aptly described as a pedagogic model that illustrates aspects of teaching and learning in online learning environments and the interactions between agents in the pedagogic process. Anderson’s model draws on notions of learner-centredness and discovery learning that resonate with the pedagogy of Dewey’s progressive education (Phillips 1998). For Anderson, ‘learner-centredness’ does not imply pandering to individual students’ interests. Rather, ‘learner-centredness’ requires that the teacher ascertains the knowledge a student has prior to the construction of new knowledge. Anderson’s concept of ‘community-centredness’ is loosely based on Vygotsky’s psychological theory of social constructivism and Wenger’s community of practice. Thus the pedagogy underpinning Anderson’s model of online learning has its roots in Dewey’s progressive education, Vygotsky’s social constructivism and Wenger’s communities of practice. In contrast to Piaget, Vygotsky viewed learning as crucially linked to society. The structuring of language and thought is related to the historical changes in society and culture (Vygotsky 1978:7). Teaching by an adult or more knowledgeable peer is central to the learning process, which aims at transforming the mind of the child into that of an adult. Learning is developed through the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which is: [T]he distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or collaboration with more capable peers. (Vygotsky 1978:86) Since learning for Vygotsky is a social process, he stressed the importance of dialogue and the role of language as a mediator and principal tool for thinking. Anderson’s emphasis on interaction and collaboration can therefore be traced to Vygotsky’s notion of mediation through language by a more knowledgeable other. Anderson’s model of online learning constitutes another example of the transformation of psychological constructivism to pedagogic constructivism. Anderson’s pedagogy is therefore typical of Bernstein’s competence pedagogy in that students actively construct meaning for themselves in a learning context managed by the teacher. E-learning 2.0 – the influence of progressive education and radical constructivism E-Learning 2.0, coined by Downes (2005), is a form of pedagogy enabled by web 2.0 technologies or social software technologies. Web 2.0 technologies have transformed the ‘read web’ to the ‘read-write’ web, in other words, the internet is transforming from: [A] medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content is created, shared, remixed, repurposed and passed along. (Downes 2005) He claims that this technological transformation is accompanied by a social transformation, because people are transforming from having been consumers of information to becoming producers of it, and that this marks the rise of new ICT-mediated social practices which can be considered generational, so the younger generation of people are more likely to be classifiable as digital natives or the NetGeneration. Digital natives are claimed to deal with information differently to digital immigrants. They are said to be capable of dealing with vast amounts of information and with the rapid influx of information in multimodal forms often linked through hypertext (Prensky 2001). Digital natives are also said to be capable of processing information rapidly and of multi-tasking, for instance, listening to music, talking on a cell phone and playing computer games simultaneously (Brown 2002). Based on the everyday ICT practices of digital natives, inferences are made about their learning preferences. Young people are said to prefer experiential, discovery and constructivist modes of learning 279

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(Prensky 2001; Brown 2000) to deductive, passive didactic modes of teaching and learning. E-learning 2.0, according to Downes, caters for the needs and skills of digital natives. E-learning 2.0 is characterised as: ‘learner-centered’ or ‘student-centered’ design. This is more than just adapting to different learning styles or allowing the user to change font size and background colour; it is placing control of learning itself into the hands of the learner. […] Learning is characterized not only by greater autonomy of the learner, but also greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and participation playing key roles, and on changing roles for the teacher, indeed, even a collapse of the distinction between teacher and student altogether. (Downes 2005, my emphasis) Downes’s E-learning 2.0 implies that ‘traditional’ modes of teaching and learning which take place within institutions with distinct roles for teachers and students can be replaced by informal communities of practice through which learning takes place. Formal curricula and textbooks are substituted with student content generated by ‘repurposing’ and ‘remixing’ information obtained from the internet and through collaboration with others. The boundaries between teacher and student, between knowledge forms and between institutional learning and informal learning are considerably weakened. Students are considered to be both consumers and producers of knowledge, and the knowledge of crowds supersedes that of individual knowledge experts. Implicit in the pedagogy underpinning E-learning 2.0 is a form of radical progressive education or ‘learner-centred’ education where the role of teacher is to establish and manage a learning environment rather than to teach students; students are largely left alone to discover knowledge through active learning (Phillips 2000); and established curricula are replaced by the interests of the students. The concept of ‘learner-centredness’, however, has been misinterpreted by the followers of progressive educators such as Downes. ‘Learner-centredness’ has been construed as replacing the authority of the teacher and curriculum with the interest of the learner. However, Dewey maintained in The child and the curriculum that the student’s interest and the curriculum are two sides of the same coin (Phillips 1998; Howe and Berv 2000). Dewey was not arguing that the teacher should “cave in” to the interests of the child, nor of course was he suggesting that teachers should merely impose material on students. Rather, he was suggesting that the teacher had a more important and subtle role to play. Nevertheless, he was often blamed for the excesses of progressive movements over the 3 or 4 decades following the publication of The Child and the Curriculum. (Phillips 1998:410) In Dewey’s pedagogy, the teacher’s role was to attempt to address the interest of learners through a structured curriculum. Furthermore, aspects of E-learning 2.0, such as the role of the teacher and the absence of a structured curriculum, resonates with Von Glaserfeld’s radical constructivist pedagogy that objects to the direct teaching of objective knowledge and opposes externally imposed curricula that set out learning goals and knowledge to be acquired by the student (McCarty and Schwandt 2000). There are a number of problems with the vision of E-learning 2.0 and the discourse on the digital natives. Firstly, while web 2.0 does give students greater opportunities to ﬁnd, ‘reuse and remix’ content, student content ‘creation’ is not equivalent to new knowledge created by researchers, nor it is it the same as content produced by ‘publishers, organised and structured into courses’ (Downes 2005). Downes fails to distinguish between student-created content, such as essays, projects and posters, and content that is selected and sequenced for use in a particular curriculum. Student-generated content of the type described above is not new. Students have always been producing content by drawing on existing content 280

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in textbooks or websites. What is new is the range of content available to them, the forms of collaboration that are possible and the modes in which students can present the content they ‘create’. Secondly, Downes does not distinguish between different disciplines. In his view, knowledge can be acquired in any form and any sequence. This may be true for subjects/disciplines (e.g. the social sciences) in which knowledge is not cumulative and does not depend on prior knowledge of concepts. Subjects such as mathematics, where knowledge is cumulative and acquisition of prior concepts is crucial, require structuring into a curriculum that sets out a developmental learning pathway, though this is not to deny that more than one pathway may be possible. Similarly, Allias (2006) in her discussion of South Africa’s outcomes-based qualifications at Further Education and Training level illustrates the dangers of not distinguishing between different knowledge forms. Thirdly, digital natives are treated as homogenous in the literature. However, Bennett, Maton and Kervin (2008) have concluded from recent research that: a proportion of young people are highly adept with technology and rely on it for a range of information gathering and communication activities. However, there also appears to be a significant proportion of young people, who do not have the levels of access or technology skills predicted by proponents of the digital native idea. (Bennett, Maton and Kervin 2008) Differences in age, socioeconomic status, cultural background, gender and so on are not taken into account. For example, not all digital natives are necessarily information literate (New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative 2006). The digital native discourse describes the ability of young people to access information using a range of technology. However, many young people struggle to evaluate the authenticity of the information that they find or are unable to find relevant information, particularly for academic purposes. Digital natives are therefore not as homogenous as the current literature depicts them. Furthermore, in the discourse on digital natives, claims made about the transference of social uses of technology to education are largely based on anecdotal evidence and assume that this transfer is unproblematic (Bennett, Maton and Kervin 2008). However, social uses of technology involve everyday knowledge and practices that differ from academic knowledge and practices. Bernstein (1996; 2000) distinguishes between everyday knowledge and academic knowledge. For Bernstein (1996; 2000) everyday knowledge (horizontal discourse) is distinct from academic knowledge (vertical discourse) both in form and mode of acquisition. Everyday knowledge is context dependent and is segmentally organised whereas academic knowledge is context independent and hierarchically organised. Furthermore, everyday knowledge is acquired socially through interaction and engagement with family and peers. In contrast, academic knowledge is selected and sequenced for transmission and acquisition within academic settings with clear curriculum trajectories. The discourse on digital natives treats everyday knowledge and academic knowledge as equivalent and therefore assumes that the practices young people engage in everyday settings are unproblematically transferable to educational settings. In their ethnographic study of liberal arts college students, US researchers found that students’ technology practices in the classroom differed from their practices outside the classroom (Lohnes and Kinzer 2007). In summary, Downes’s E-learning 2.0 illustrates the possibilities of learning environments enabled by web 2.0 technologies. The pedagogy underpinning E-learning 2.0 represents an interpretation of concepts implicitly derived from Dewey’s progressive education and Von Glaserfeld’s radical constructivism. This pedagogy is therefore another example of Bernstein’s competence pedagogy, where the teacher plays the role of manager of learning and students are given much greater control of their own learning. Students are active creators of knowledge and are distinguished not by a lack of knowledge but by their contributions to communal knowledge. 281

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Dispelling the myths of pedagogic constructivism Outlined above are three cases of pedagogic constructivism. Each case represents a recontextualisation of some form of psychological constructivism. Papert’s programming language LOGO is based on Piaget’s cognitive constructivism. Anderson’s theory of online learning draws on Vygotsky’s social constructivism and Wenger’s communities of practice, and Stephen Downes’s E-learning 2.0 implicitly draws on Dewey’s progressive education and Von Glaserfeld’s radical constructivism. Each case of pedagogic constructivism outlined above can be described as a form of competence pedagogy. Central to these forms of pedagogy is the specific nature of the individual student. Pedagogic constructivism is therefore structured on the basis of individual differences and does not emphasise deficits in students’ knowledge. Students are given much greater control of their own learning and the teacher is assigned as the manager of the learning context. There are numerous problems with pedagogic constructivism. The first of these relates to the relationship between theories of learning and pedagogy. Theories of learning within psychological constructivism are concerned with how individuals learn, or how individuals come to know. For Piaget, learning or the construction of knowledge involves processes of assimilation, equilibration and accommodation that alter the cognitive structures of individuals. For Vygotsky, the construction of knowledge involves mediation and the zone of proximal development. Pedagogic constructivism, on the other hand, focuses on pedagogy. Pedagogic constructivism is concerned with the roles and characteristics of teachers and students (e.g. teacher as facilitator, student as active learner etc.) and teaching and learning strategies (e.g., discovery learning, group work etc.). Pedagogic constructivists oppose direct teaching – for example, lecturing or teachers explaining concepts to students – because they associate this mode of teaching with behaviourist pedagogy that aims to convey a body of objective knowledge to students; this is in direct contradiction to the constructivist view of knowledge. Furthermore, pedagogic constructivists believe that direct teaching contradicts the very basis of constructivism: that individuals construct their own knowledge. However, if constructivism claims that individuals always learn through constructing knowledge then students should construct knowledge irrespective of the specific teaching method used. In other words, how individuals learn is not dependent on how they are taught. Specific teaching methods such as lectures or collaborative activities do not necessarily imply a particular learning theory (Howe and Berv 2000). The mistake made by constructivists is a ‘belief that theory of best teaching can be derived from a theory of knowing’ (McCarty and Schwandt 2000). The conflation of theories of learning with pedagogy is evident in educational technology literature. Several authors (Ally 2004; Conole et al. 2004; Hung 2001; Mayes and De Freitas 2004) have developed models which accommodate any theory of learning. When the behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist schools of thought are analysed closely, many overlaps in the ideas and principles become apparent. The design of online learning materials can include principles from all three. (Ally 2004:7) Ally (2004) associates particular teaching strategies with particular learning theories. For example, the learning of facts is associated with behaviourism and cooperative group work is associated with social constructivism. Different knowledge types and learning processes require different teaching and learning strategies. For example, the learning of definitions and facts (e.g. a square is a four-sided figure with all sides and angles equal) may be better achieved by direct teaching, whereas role-play may assist students with developing an appreciation of different positions in a controversial issue. Different strategies are therefore required for different topics, concepts and skills and for different learners. 282

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Associating learning theories with pedagogy leads to moral judgements of pedagogic strategies. For example, in the supporting documents of South Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Outcomes-Based Education Curriculum 2005, the old â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;traditionalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pedagogy (behaviourist) is contrasted with the new Outcomes-Based Education (constructivist). Within the discourse of Curriculum 2005, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;traditionalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pedagogy is characterised as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;badâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pedagogy and new Outcomes-Based Education is characterised as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;goodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pedagogy. However, pedagogies are not in and of themselves good or bad. It depends on how these pedagogies are deployed in the context of teaching and learning, how well the teacher manages the process of teaching and learning and the extent to which students are given epistemological access. There are several examples of constructivist pedagogies failing. For example, Jaffer (2001) illustrates how teachers attempting to use a pedagogic constructivist textbook reduced complex mathematical activities involving high level concepts of area and length to elementary counting tasks. The above discussion highlights the false relationship between theories of learning and pedagogy and the associated judgement of pedagogy on the basis of its psychological constructivist roots. The quality of the educational experience does not depend on a theory of learning. The question addressed in this paper, however, is why theories of learning and pedagogy have become conďŹ&#x201A;ated in educational technology literature. Although the idea of individuals constructing their own knowledge surfaced initially in the discourse of psychology and particularly in learning theories, this concept has been taken up and recontextualised by pedagogic constructivists. Learning theories, particularly cognitive constructivism, appeal to pedagogic constructivists because of their underlying â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;social logicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (Bernstein 2000:42). This â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;social logicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; places importance on the unique nature of individual students; each individual possesses unique competence and does not possess any deďŹ cits; the individual is active and self-regulating in the construction of knowledge. In addition, pedagogic constructivists are charmed by constructivismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s anti-authoritarian ideology, dissatisfaction with behaviourist pedagogy and its similarity to: [P]edagogical language and jargon that were features of a variety of earlier educational approaches (child-centredness, child as active participator, self-determined learning and curriculum, freedom to determine own speed of learning, teacher as guide, facilitator). (McCarty and Schwandt 2000:81) Within the ďŹ eld of educational technology, pedagogic constructivists have discarded behaviourist instructional design as a form of pedagogy because of its association with authoritarian ideology and objective knowledge. The second problem, particularly with cognitive pedagogic constructivism, revolves around the notion of concept acquisition. Pedagogic constructivists oppose direct teaching by teachers, preferring active knowledge construction by students themselves. However, the process of acquiring concepts is contradictory. For example, if a student has to learn the concept of a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in a pedagogic constructivist classroom, the student has to construct the concept of a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; without the teacher deďŹ ning a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for the learner. The constructivist process of acquisition is described as follows. Concepts are abstracted from experience and are a means to organising and classifying similar experiences. So if a student does not have a concept of a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, s/he needs to abstract the concept from her/his own experience through selecting similarities and differences. However, without the concept of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; already in place, how does the student determine what are relevant similarities or differences? Therefore to organise experiences (or to abstract concepts), the student needs to have the concept in place already (McCarty and Schwandt 2000:52). This means that the teacher has to deďŹ ne a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for the student. As such, the basic principle of constructivist view of concept acquisition is contradictory. The above discussion highlights the appeal 283

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of learning theories to pedagogic constructivists and illustrates how the concept of competence derived from a discourse of psychology has been transformed by pedagogic constructivists. However, this idealism of competence, a celebration of what we are in contrast to what we have become, is bought at a price; that is the price of abstracting the individual from the analysis of distributions of power and principles of control which selectively specialise modes of acquisition and realisation. Thus the announcement of competence points away from such selective specialisations and so points away from the macro blot on the micro context. (Bernstein 2000:43) Bernstein draws our attention to the danger of removing pedagogy from its social and political context and therefore from the effects of the social on selective transmission and acquisition. The conﬂation of learning theories based on individual models of cognition with pedagogy has tended to abstract the individual learner from society.

Conclusion The paper explores the relationship between learning theories and educational technology. Instructivist pedagogies are underpinned by behavioural and cognitive psychology while variants of constructivist pedagogies are based on cognitive constructivism or social constructivism. The paper illustrates the dominance of psychological learning theories as the basis of theories of educational technology pedagogy, and the looseness of ﬁt between theories of learning and pedagogy. Bernstein’s notion of the ‘social logic’ of pedagogies is used to provide an explanation for the dominance of learning theories, particularly that of cognitive constructivism, as the basis of research and practice in the ﬁeld of educational technology. Furthermore the paper argues that educational technology pedagogy needs to take into account the social context of learning and teaching. In particular, educational technology pedagogy should be concerned with how knowledge is taught, learnt and assessed; how the process of learning and teaching impacts on producing and reproducing social difference; on the nature of the pedagogic relationship; and on how the nature of the relationship between teachers and learners impacts on the differential distribution of knowledge to different groups of students.

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See Nichols (2003) for a similar observation. The term ‘instructional design’ originated in the ﬁeld of educational technology and has similar meanings to learning design or curriculum design. See Dowling’s analysis of a mathematics teaching scheme in which he illustrates how Piaget’s concept of ‘concrete’ takes on a different meaning in the pedagogic constructivist text (Dowling 1998:36). These are small sticks in different colours which represent numbers in different units (ones, tens etc). Piaget refers to a Swiss mathematics educator rather than to Nicolet by name. However, Nicolet is the mathematics educator who developed animated ﬁlms to illustrate geometric concepts. Web 2.0 technologies include content creation and sharing technologies such as Wikipedia (text), Flickr (photographs), Youtube (videos), Napster (music) and Facebook (social networking). The knowledge structure of the social sciences does however, not negate the importance of being inducted into systems of knowledge. See the work of Wheelahan (2007) for discussion on the

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importance of inducting students into codiﬁed forms of knowledge as these constitute powerful forms of knowledge. The shift from cognitive constructivism based on Piaget to social constructivism recontextualised from Vygotskyism ensured the continued existence of the progressive pedagogies (Bernstein 2000).

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Author Shaheeda Jaffer School of Education University of Cape Town Private Bag Rondebosch, 7701 South Africa E-mail: shaheeda.jaffer@uct.ac.za

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