In response to societal shifts, K-12 teachers are struggling to design effective learning environments. The advent of increased access to world-linking technology has extended the use of distance education to enrich and expand the learning landscape for students. A number of individuals have suggested that a body of learning theory, constructivism, supports technology-rich classrooms as a part of a vision of the twenty-first century. To support and facilitate teachers’ responses to these changes in their classrooms, this project sought to identify a core of constructivist-based learning environment designs, experiences, or elements necessary for their implementation in a distance education setting. A panel of knowledgeable individuals in the areas of constructivism and technologically-mediated education participated in an electronic Delphi study. Findings indicated that teachers who wish to develop constructivist-based distance learning environments need training in the creation of authentic, student-centered lessons.
New visions about learning, the emergence of high-performance computing and communication technology, and connectivity to the information superhighway are offering educators the opportunity to rethink and restructure the way they design distance education. The introduction of new technologies and means of interconnectivity, offering more online capabilities to teachers and students, have provided a rich environment for educators who incorporate more student-centered and resource-based approaches to instruction within a distance education setting.
When knowledge is “constructed,” the tools to support that construction become important. Technology is one of the tools impacting society and, as such, education. As one looks toward the contexts that will evolve in the future, there is little doubt that technology will play a key role (Kimball & Sibley, 1997; Knuth & Hopey, 1997). One form of learning environment created using technology is the distance education setting. Distance education can be defined as institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2003, p. 7). Distance education technologies offer many opportunities to restructure the teaching-learning process. These changes include increased flexibility, interactivity, and access to a wide variety of resources for teachers and students. The placement of sophisticated technologies for distance education makes sense only if updated curricula can use them effectively. Using these technologies effectively requires a linking between educational needs and technological capabilities (Roblyer, 2003). Methods used to optimize instruction by linking content and the communications characteristics of the medium are important issues that have been discussed (see e.g., Carr, Jonassen, Litzinger, & Marra, 1998; Mehlinger, 1996; O'Neil, 1995; Sheingold, 1991). Too often, the potential of the technology for collaboration and interaction is ignored as one-way lectures are delivered to students in remote locations.
Jonassen, Davidson, Collins, Campbell, and Haag (1995) suggested that the most valuable classroom activity is one that provides opportunities for “students to work together and interact together to build and become part of a community of scholars and practitioners” (p. 7). They suggested that technology used in distance education should facilitate these learning processes rather than broadcast teacher-centered lectures and demonstrations.
Discussions about the appropriate role of technology in the learning process have increasingly stressed a body of learning theory called constructivism (see e.g., Becker, 2000; Jonassen, 2000; Wilson, 1996). Constructivism describes both what knowing is and how one comes to know. According to Fosnot (1996), a constructivist sees knowledge as “temporary, developmental, nonobjective, internally constructed, and socially and culturally mediated” (p. ix). She defined learning as:
a self-regulatory process of dealing with the conflict between existing personal models of the world and discrepant new insights, constructing new representations and models of reality as a human meaningmaking venture with culturally developed tools and symbols, and further negotiating such meaning through cooperative social activity, discourse, and debate. (p. ix)
Learners construct their own reality or at least interpret it based on their prior knowledge and personal experiences. Thus, an individual's knowledge is a function of prior experiences, mental structures, and beliefs that are used to interpret objects and events (Bredo, 1994; Jonassen, Mayes, & McAleese, 1992).
Great time and effort have been spent discussing constructivism (see e.g., Duffy & Jonassen, 1992; Duffy, Lowyck, & Jonassen, 1993; Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1999; Wilson, 1996) and distance education (see e.g., Duffy & Kirkeley, 2004; Willis, 1994). However, little discussion has surrounded the knowledge teachers need to implement a constructivist-based distance education program (Duffy & Kirkley, 2004). This study brought together an outstanding cadre of individuals in constructivism and technologically-mediated learning for the purpose of identifying the elements a teacher must have to responsively create, facilitate, and assess these learning environments. Professional development in technological applications, expected to be used to reform the learning environment, has seldom kept pace with a district's purchase and installation of technology (Hawkins & Macmillan, 1993; Siegel, 1995). Attention needs to be shifted to teachers’ staff development that combines instruction and technology to develop new learning conditions through new teaching practices.
Change does not come easily. For many, the distance learning configuration is a change from what they have traditionally done. For technology to support changes in the design of learning environments, its role must be examined. No longer the delivery truck of information, technology can now be a partner in the students’ construction of knowledge. Understanding the various roles technology can play will help the teacher and student use it to create empowering learning environments (Jonassen et al., 1995). Because teachers will need a knowledge base to draw from as they develop and implement their curriculum, the simple identification of strategies or products necessary to support these learning environments is not enough.
Considering the nature of distance education, with students expected to shoulder more of the responsibility for learning, and the increased capacity of emerging technology to support learning, the marriage of constructivism and distance education seems a likely fit. As teachers embark on this trip into uncharted territories, it will be tempting to look backward for familiar tools to assist in adapting to new environments. The intent of this article is to provide a look forward at methods and tools, and their requisite training needs, that can better support these new environments.
Method
Research Design
The purpose of this Delphi study was to have nationally recognized individuals identify instructional designs or experiences to be used in the creation of constructivist-based distance learning environments. In addition, the elements needed for their implementation and use by teachers were identified. The Delphi technique was used as a forecasting method in order to “identify new factors influencing the future state of a technological development or new needs which might be satisfied” (Twiss, 1992, p. 107). The needs of teachers who are expected to incorporate constructivist-based learning theory with emerging distance education learning environments were examined. A panel of 13 knowledgeable individuals in the areas of constructivism and instructional technology completed the four-phase Delphi study. The World Wide Web (Web) was used as the primary vehicle for the development and iterations of the Delphi study. Three constructivist propositions, as identified by Savery and Duffy (1996, p. 135) guided the development of the study:
Understanding is in our interactions with the environment. Because understanding is a function of the interaction of the content, context, activity, and individual, a context was created to serve as a vehicle for the Delphi study. The School District #627 Instructional Support Project, a virtual school district, was established as a fictitious project intended to develop an outline of the teachers’ necessary knowledge to create, facilitate, and assess constructivist-based learning environments in schools without walls, a virtual school district.
Cognitive conflict or puzzlement is the stimulus for learning and determines the organization and nature of what is learned. The placement of the panel within the project context provided the purpose for the Delphi study. The identification of the knowledge and skills provided the stimulus for knowledge construction.
Knowledge evolves through social negotiation and through the evaluation of the viability of individual understandings. The social environment of the Delphi method and the use of the Web provided the panel with opportunities to see and respond to each other's anonymous responses. The iterations of the Delphi study allowed the negotiation in the construction of the final product of the study.
Findings from the Delphi study were used to answer the following questions:
What knowledge is perceived as important for teachers to learn in order to create, facilitate, and assess constructivist-based distance learning environments?
How is the knowledge (as identified in the previous question) rated in importance to the creation, facilitation, and assessment of knowledge acquisition in constructivist-based distance learning environments?
Panel Membership
Panel members were strong conceptual leaders in the areas of constructivism, constructivist-based assessment, technologically-mediated education, instructional design, learning environment design, and distance and virtual learning environments. A selection matrix was constructed, and each person's expertise was identified, so that a broad base was covered by panel members. The final Delphi study panel consisted of 3 females and 10 males. Fourteen of the original panel members were in the university setting and one was in private business. All panelists were located in the United States. The final 13 panel members were from 12 different states.
Instrument
All instruments were available on the School District #627 Instructional Support Project World Wide Web (Web) site. A previously-expressed concern about formatting problems during an electronic mail-based Delphi study (Bell, 1992) and a concern about ease of replying, led the researcher to the use of the Web for the project. The Web was chosen because: (a) it could be designed to provide a simplified interactive environment thought to encourage input from the panel; (b) it provided a more standardized format for viewing the information presented on the pages; (c) it facilitated setting of the context and connections to support documents by its ability to hyperlink pages; and (d) it offered the flexibility of adding follow-up iterations while still maintaining previous ones for the panel members’ edification.
A concern noted in the planning of this project was the chance that outsiders might respond to the Delphi instrument and confound the study. A Web assessment response program, Classnet (Boysen & Van Gorp, 1995), was incorporated into the project to assure panel members’ anonymity and reception of only authorized responses. Classnet required an alias before answers could be submitted, thus eliminating outside interference.
Procedure
So that conversation was not constrained by providing answers for which participants respond, a potentially real world context, the School District #627 Instructional Support Project, was provided where panel members could explore, reflect, and respond. The intent of the context was to frame the discussion, but leave it open to the areas of expertise of the panel members. The scenario was left broad enough to allow visioning for future technology (i.e., any type of distance technology) while clearly situating the discussion in a K-12 constructivist-based learning environment.
A majority of the communication was carried out via the computer, using e-mail for management issues and the Web for the Delphi study. The Phase One instrument, which provided for the social negotiation of the design-guiding principles, offered five design-guiding principles to support the creation of constructivist-based distance learning environments for review and comment by the panel. E-mail reminders were sent out twice during this phase.
Phase Two, based on panel members’ comments, presented rewritten and reordered design-guiding principles (see Table 1) and an instrument that asked panelists to provide design components or experiences and essential elements of teacher preparation that would exemplify the principle.
The panelists were asked to respond to the following questions pertaining to each principle:
Provide one example appropriate for School District #627 of a learning environment design component or experience that would exemplify this principle.
Identify the essential elements of teacher preparation needed by the District #627 teachers to implement the design or experience.
Responses were analyzed line by line using the open coding method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), and common themes and emerging patterns were identified and consolidated into like statements where they were categorized. They were then placed into a Likert Scale format ranging from unimportant to very important. The Likert format, as well as comment boxes, was used for the rest of the phases. An example of a Delphi design component or experience statement is presented in Table 1, along with its companion teacher training element.
Phases Three and Four focused on identification of the framework of design-guiding principles and the design components or experiences and elements necessary for their implementation. In Phase Three, the panel members identified those components of the Delphi instrument they felt were most important to the design of the distance learning environments. Panel members were asked to rate the importance of each design, example, and corresponding implementation elements on a Likert-type scale with ratings of Unimportant, Of Little Importance, Moderately Important, Important, or Very Important. The Delphi Statistical Tool (DST), a software program (Holden, 1992a), was used to analyze the data. It computed the quartile deviation, interquartile range (consensus zone), and median for each item. It also created the questionnaires, emailed to panel members, showing consensus zones and personal previous phase responses.
In Phase Four, panel members received three pieces of information via e-mail: an identification number (e.g., #6) that was used to identify items needing individual panel member's response, the consensus zone (i.e., interquartile range), and the individual panel member's rating on the Phase Three questionnaire. Panelists were asked to reevaluate any of their responses that fell outside a consensus zone to either come into the zone or explain their outlying rating. A composite of responses was also presented on the Web site. All responding was carried out via the site.
It was decided at the conclusion of Phase Four that, because 93% (88 of 95) of the items fell into the moderate to high consensus zone and 69% of the items had received important to very important ratings, that the Delphi study would be concluded. In other words, 50% or more of the respondents agreed on the rating of the items. Items in the moderate to high consensus zone and important to very important rating were said to have reached the target zone. Eighty-one percent (17 of 21) of the design components or experiences were in the target zone.
Limitations
The Delphi study was very complex and timeconsuming (i.e., four phases; 95 items; 1 year). Phase Three consisted of the five design-guiding principles, 20 learning environment design components or experiences that exemplify a principle, and 75 essential elements of teacher preparation needed for design or experience implementation. This is many more items than is recommended (Martino, 1983), but the length was deemed necessary so that each principle's component or experience could be addressed separately.
While it had been expected that the use of the Web would expedite the process, other issues served to delay it. The length of time for completion was affected by technological problems, panel members’ travel schedules, and the size of the panel. Unfortunately, some issues, such as the electronic system's faults that caused responses to be lost, served to detract from the process instead of facilitate it. The use of the Web also contributed to the complexity of the Delphi study because each item had to contain the root (e.g., the component or experience) and the stem (e.g., the element), provided to remind panelists that items had a hierarchical connection.
Results
After Phase Four, using a formula defined by Scheibe, Skutsch, and Schofer (1975), Faherty (1979), and Holden (1992b), results showed 23% of the Delphi items reached high consensus (quartile deviation of ≤ .5), 65% of the items reached moderate consensus (quartile deviation of ≤ .83), and 11% reached low consensus (quartile deviations ≥ .84). Of the total components or experiences and elements, 69% of the items received moderate to high consensus on important to very important ratings. Table 5 shows the average consensus level and rating for each principle's design components and elements.
Discussion and Implications
Constructivism can provide theoretical basis for exciting and effective distance learning environments (Jonassen et al., 1995). Results from this study provide those charged with training teachers a body of methods and strategies that can serve as the foundation for creating constructivist-based distance education.
The first design-guiding principle's issues addressed the concept of knowing how we know (i.e., reflexivity). Panelists indicated that staff development activities that promote reflexivity should include the development of problem-based learning environments situated in contexts that students could identify as authentic, whether “authentic” is an out-of-school context or an academic activity in which they generate knowledge. Of particular importance to panelists was the teachers’ ability to create learning environments that offered students opportunities to choose paths in solving problems within an authentic context. To facilitate that process, teachers need training on how to assist students in the knowledge construction process and on multiple strategies for knowledge construction and interpretation. Finally, teachers need to know how to use tools that allow the distance classroom participants to compare their views to others, reflect on their knowledge construction and then make modifications accordingly.
Principle Two addressed the novice-to-expert learning continuum and its impact on the student's ownership of the learning process. The teacher training element with the highest consensus and the highest rating in the Delphi study was identified under this principle: teachers serving as a guide/facilitator for students rather than as an expert. Teachers need to be able to model and provide coaching support for each student as he or she carries out varied research strategies. They also need to assist students in the realization that they can develop and carry out their own learning strategies. Again, the issue of understanding multiple ways of approaching learning was found to be important. The distance learning environment offers a rich venue for these activities.
Relevancy of the learning was a key to teacher training for the third principle's implementation. Attention to issues and projects that motivate students, such as fantasy, curiosity, challenge, beauty, and social recognition, were given top priority. Panelists recognized that the environment must be inherently motivating to the student in order to be successful. Certainly, attributes of a technologically-facilitated environment can be used to support this concept. The use of a broad societal context rather than narrow content domains was seen as assisting in making the issues relevant by grounding them in authentic instructional situations. Again, the training of students was found to be important to their ability to function in situations in which they are required to direct and manage a project reflective of the topic at hand.
In Principle Four, panelists noted that in order to facilitate the transformation of typical classrooms into learning communities, teachers need to understand the use of questioning strategies to elicit, not direct, students’ rationales and evidence of learning. Teachers also need to learn and demonstrate strategies for processing the ongoing dialogue, so students learn to hear, analyze, and evaluate others’ ways of conceptualizing ideas. Panelists brought up the need for embedding problem solving in a social framework to expose the students to multiple perspectives and a spectrum of individual problem-solving skills. Interestingly, panelists recommended that students learn skills of negotiation, conflict resolution, and mediation. These skills were identified as necessary in developing communities of learners where each individual risks expressing and defending ideas without feeling threatened, thus allowing the community to compare and contrast varying perspectives on the issue at hand, a key concept when students do not see each other face-to-face. In the distance setting, the teacher will also need to design “learning communities” that require students at different sites to work with one another and to use tools that allow students to post and provide feedback to one another.
Principle Five addressed the integration of assessment into the learning process. It incorporated the negotiation of performance criteria or rubrics between the teacher and the students. Of primary importance to this process, and receiving the second highest rating from the panel, was the ability to construct and implement performance assessments. Performance assessment is dynamic assessment that occurs during instruction rather than after the fact. Its purpose is to measure a student's assisted performance during the learning process so teachers can address problems, issues, and concerns as they occur. Although performance assessment was seen by the respondents as important, a concern about the amount of time it takes and the need for a balanced, rather than singular, set of evaluation components was clearly indicated. The use of tools for portfolio maintenance was considered very important for staff development because it was one of the few relatively well-developed ways of assessing that could be integrated into the learning process.
Teachers will need training to use assessment as a means to mentoring, guiding, and evaluating students as the students increasingly become responsible for learning. In doing so, students will become mindful in their exploration of errors and can learn to give thoughtful consideration to their and others’ knowledge-construction process while teachers facilitate the process by regularly assessing the status of the learning.
Conclusions
An analysis of the results identified five training threads consistently identified as important or very important to the staff development of K-12 teachers in order to enable the design of constructivist-based distance learning environments. These threads included:
Learning guide or facilitator roles for teachers
Training needs of students to implement learning strategies
Embedding of assessment within the learning process
Creation and facilitation of problem-based learning
Multiple approaches to knowledge development
A synthesis of the specific training elements associated with the five training threads is presented in the Appendix. The elements provide a structure for staff development of those K-12 teachers charged with developing constructivist-based distance learning environments. It is strongly recommended that strategies for these five items be incorporated into ongoing staff development.
Jonassen et al. (1995) posit that constructivist-based distance learning environments “should emerge from authentic tasks, engage the learners in meaningful, problem-based thinking, and require negotiation of meaning and reflection on what has been learned … [and] assessment methods that reflect the constructivist methods embedded in the learning environment” (p. 21). The results from this Delphi study expand these ideas. A review of the results found the threads of problem-based learning, multiple approaches to knowledge development, and embedding of assessment within the learning process were consistent with the suggestions of Jonassen et al. Missing from their discussion was identification of the teachers’ roles when acting in a learning guide or facilitator role. The training needs of students to implement their learning strategies were also left out of Jonassen et al.’s discussion. Just as teachers will need training to function effectively in these learning environments, so too will students. Planning for staff development should also include information on similar student training needs so they, too, can function effectively in the learning environment.
Perhaps the most surprising outcome of this investigation was the secondary role of technological tools in the process. Many distance education-based training sessions have centered on issues such as time management, classroom management, instructor presence, and presentation issues. The results show that the training should center on the instructional issues first, and on the operational issues second.
The findings offer guidance not only for curriculum in the classroom but also for continuous staff development. The challenge now is to integrate the findings into school districts’ staff development activities. While the district provides the overall vision (i.e., constructivist-based distance education), the staff developer is charged with the responsibility of bringing that vision to the individual faculty needs within the educational setting. The key will be to create staff development training that will be ongoing and immerse teachers in a constructivist learning process.
In reviewing the design components or experiences and the elements necessary for their implementation, it is evident that they can be applied to most classrooms and staff development programs. As demand for access to education continues to grow, educational institutions are expanding their distance education offerings. The extent of items found to be important by the panel members cannot be addressed in a single training session. If any change is to occur, teachers will need the training, time, and support to develop and implement effective constructivist-based distance education curriculum.
