Constructivist learning environments (CLEs) emphasize technology-based, meaningful interactions where learners interpret and construct their own understanding based on experiences. Educators must design CLEs that actively engage learners in meaningful projects promoting exploration, experimentation, collaboration and reflection. CLEs support project-based learning and present learners with complex, ill-structured real-world problems that have no single solution, requiring investigation and reasoning to develop their own ideas. Resources in CLEs include information banks, the internet, and tools that support collaboration to help learners solve problems.

1. Constructivist Learning
Environments (CLE)
• Modern constructivist learning environments
are technology-based in which learners are
engaged in meaningful interactions

2. • Emphasis is on learners
who interpret and
construct meaning based
on their own experiences
and interactions.

3. Therefore, if educators are to
adopt a constructivist approach
they are now challenged to
adapt and change instructional
design strategies to actively
engage learners in meaningful
projects and activities that
promote ---

4. •exploration

5. • experimentation

6. • construction

7. • collaboration

8. and reflection of what these
learners are studying.

9. • The concept of constructivism
emphasizes the student as being
the active learner, playing a
central role in mediating and
controlling learning.
(Jonassen, 1999).

10. • The Internet, World Wide Web, and
hypermedia application programs, all
hypertext based environments, are very
quickly transforming how information is
stored and retrieved and how learners
collectively communicate, access,
contribute, and create information and
resources.

11. • The growing demand and use of
cognitive tools in education is placing
students and technology, rather than
instructors and curriculum at the
center of educational practice, and
that learners will increasingly demand
that the technology relate to their real
world needs

12. Design

13. • Constructivist learning
environments support
project-based curriculum as
an alternative to traditional
teaching practices.

14. • There is a need for those
educators involved with the design
and implementation of hypertext
learning programs and
applications to be philosophically
aware and appropriately trained in
their effective use

15. Real World Problems

16. • Jonassen (1998) believes that
learners should be presented
with interesting, relevant, and
meaningful problems to
solve.

17. • These real world problems
should not be overly defined,
but rather ill-structured, in
order to allow students to seek
out a solution to the problem

18. • There is no single right answer or
single solution for a problem using
this approach. Constructivist
learning environments must be
designed to engage the learner in
complex thinking exercises that
require reasoning and investigation
of the problem to be undertaken.

19. • Student must construct their own
ideas to make sense out of the
situation. Suchman (1987) refers
to this as knowledge being
constructed and understood by
the learner.

20. Presenting The Task

21. • Presenting the task or activity to the
student in a meaningful context is an
important design consideration. The
initial presentation of the problem
must be appealing, interesting, and
engaging for the learner to buy into
the problem.

22. • When presenting complex problems,
several tools may seem useful to aid
the learner to see the problem in a
different light. This allows the
learner to see the complex
relationships that exists with the
problem.

23. • Interactive multimedia, simulations,
demonstrations and hypermedia
programs can assist and help the
student to better understand the
problem in its complexity.

24. • Learners can manipulate,
investigate, and make
connections to better
understand the topic being
studied.

25. The Environment

26. • Learning environments require
manipulation space that provides
learners a sufficient area to research,
experiment, and pose hypotheses
with the problem (Jonassen, 1999).
• Active engagement with the problem
gives ownership of the problem to
the learner.

27. • Some complex problems require
related cases to be made
available for the learner to have
access to so that students can
make comparisons with the
current problem.

28. • The Internet, for example, provides quick
immediate access to a multitude of
resources. Jonassen refers to this as
gaining multiple perspectives that allow
learners different approaches to the
problem, especially if the learner has
inadequate prior knowledge.

29. Resources

30. • When designing learning
environments, educators must
also know what resources and
information the learner will
require in their endeavor to solve
the problem they are studying.

31. • Jonassen(1999) refers to information
banks that includes resources like text
documents, computers, World Wide Web
access, hypermedia applications,
animation, sound devices, and other
technological devices that are accessible
to the learner to solve the problem or
project.

32. • The World Wide Web and
hypermedia are fast becoming
powerful tools and resources for
information storage and retrieving.
Hypermedia, for example, offers
learners flexibility in their pursuit of
information.

33. • Applications such as computer
conferencing, chat lines, newsgroups,
and bulletin boards promote
conversation and collaboration and
assist meaningful learning. The use of
these tools helps facilitate discussion
and sharing of ideas amongst learners
when they are addressing the same
goals.

34. • “Successful student to student
communication in the constructivist sense
results in peers being identified as resources
rather than competitors”
• - Strommen and Lincoln, 1992

35. • end