The Study

We asked several experienced teachers who became interested in this design to talk with us about their practice. These four teachers represent primary, intermediate, middle school language arts, and high school mathematics. RM had three years of teaching experience, and NH over ten. Each had become familiar with the Constructivist Learning Design in courses taken with George. We chose five questions for the focus group and presented each member with a copy of these questions and the latest version of our Constructivist Learning Design. The focus group lasted an hour forty minutes, and we videotaped the dialogue with the help of Kay Peters, a research assistant. We then made a complete transcript of the dialogue from the videotape. Our analysis of answers directed to each question is presented in this section.

Question One: What attracted you to this Constructivist Learning Design (CLD) for organizing your classroom teaching?

Each of the four teachers we interviewed was attracted to the CLD for different reasons. NH described the inquiry theme of her second grade classroom, and that this design was a natural fit for her planning. "What attracted me is that, when I try to have my children construct meaning, they are engaged in reading and writing, and that's my major focus." RM began using the Learning Design model as a student teacher, and revisited it with her current fourth grade team. "Madeline Hunter wasn't quite cutting it for me. I needed something that worked with kids, and this worked with kids." JZ described himself as a traditional male, coach-type math teacher who learned constructive ways of thinking about learning in his graduate program. The CLD provided similar language for him to carry the kinds of experiences he had as an adult learner to his math students.

"I hadn't seen anything like this, but that was the way [George] taught his courses, under this model [CLD]. So really, for the last couple of years, what I have been trying to do is take these ideas and apply them to the high school level; I modified [the CLD] to fit what worked for me."

"What attracted me to this CLD was that it answered a question I had as a teacher and as a student, going through grade school and high school . . . so my question I had been asking for a long time was, 'How then does a teacher become a catalyst for transforming a plagiarist into the artist? How then do we reach for Picasso, when we are entrenched in a "paint by number" ideology?'"

Question Two: How would you describe one lesson you taught using this design?

Each of our participants offered examples of constructivist learning designs they had taught. NH presented a place value unit; RM described a unit on regions of the United States; JZ offered a unit on compound interest; and SR discussed a unit on Anne Frank remembered. Common to all the portrayals of their designs were:

• They were all teaching familiar lessons but teaching them in a different way. Each had used these same units in prior years but found their previous approaches unsatisfactory and tried to do them in a more constructivist way. These units were usually designed in response to district outcomes or text objectives.
• The engagement of students in learning was central to all their reports. They described students as actively involved in constructing their own meaning and displaying it to the class.
• The time it took to carry out was much longer than the typical one period lesson plan. They described taking one to three weeks to complete in depth studies of unit concepts.
• Students taking responsibility for their own learning was evident in their descriptions. They asked questions, exhibited their learning, and reflected on their learning process.

When we discussed the language of the six elements, the group talked about them in groups first and then as separate categories. The first three were lumped together as central to thinking about setting up for learning, and the last three were described later as important process for involving students in their own learning. Materials were linked to groupings, questions, exhibit and also mentioned as a separate category. The bridge was cited as necessary to connect with prior learning and life experience. JZ remarked, "I like that term bridge also. I group it into setting up the situation. But it really is what it does. You really need to go from where they are to set it up so they can succeed." NH blended an inquiry approach with the CLD and had this observation about the situation, "The situation is a huge piece for me because that's the exploration stage, that's the part where I'm presenting a lot of information,...not really giving my comment...but exposing them to a lot of stuff, and I really have to think that through." SR comments on reflections, "I think this reflections step should never be minimized. I don't know about other students, only about middle school students, but if there is not a connection to them I am dead in the water...Unless they are connected to it, it's not going to work." JZ echoes her thoughts, "One of the things you mentioned is relating it to real life...I always kind of get to that down in five and six [exhibit and reflections] when they describe meaning for them."

Question Four: How do you include district and text objectives or outcomes in your designing for learning?

Sometimes teachers backed into district outcomes because they were demonstrated by the "basket of questions, exhibit, and reflections" produced by students. For example, SR describes an LD student's portfolio and how she used it to demonstrate accomplishment of IEP outcomes to the LD teacher. It was artifacts from the learning design process that provided material for her portfolio, "...you could see the growth of the child from her first questions, exhibit, reflections activity to the one we did at the very end." NH agreed, "Yeah, those are the three things I save at my level, the questions they come up with, their exhibit, and reflections that they keep because they write it down."

This basket of student produced documentation of learning carried the fruit of appropriate assessment from teachers to parents. RM described meeting a fourth grade social studies outcome through her team's cross-country adventure.

"A lesson that I taught really came out of boredom with the existing social studies curriculum...The other fourth grade teachers and I sat down and decided we needed to do something that was going to engage our students, and have them construct the meaning of the regions of the United States. And of course, part of that was they had to memorize the fifty states, too. It was real easy to memorize the fifty states when you're traveling through themÉthey were recording where they went, they were journaling about where they were going, creating post cards, all that just fell out."

"I made my choices for implementing this by looking at my district outcomes for first grade, at what topic area they wanted me to cover and had given me a text for. How was I going to do it without the text?...I look at the product of the writing that I ask them to do, and I see evidence of these outcomes."

Three of the teachers described a Madeline Hunter evaluation format that was being used by their districts and principals. The fourth reported a less formal evaluation visit by his principal. However, all of them indicated that their respective principals were satisfied when they were presented with the CLD and observed the engagement of students in their classrooms. RM commented, "When you're observed and evaluated what you get back is each piece of Madeline Hunter explained and how you incorporated that. But quite honestly, I still plan this way [CLD] because you know it's all going to come out." SR reported, "I was just tenured last week, so for the last three years I've been evaluated that way [Madeline Hunter] but I teach this way [CLD] and there's never been any question." NH added, "My kids are engaged in learning and my parents aren't calling...as long as you have parents informed and involved in what you are doing in the classroom, I haven't run into any issues administratively." SR agrees that it wasn't just similarity of sections like the bridge and Anticipatory Set, "It could be. The other thing it could be is that the kids are engaged. He is impressed by that, that somehow these students are engaged, and where or not there was an Anticipatory Set, I don't think it matters." The consensus of the group was that it was difficult to leave this CLD for a substitute because of their uneven quality and expectations unless you had arranged for a particular sub who was familiar with the format and process.

Insights

• Our focus group participants already had a value for this way of thinking about learning. The CLD provided them with language and linked to practices they already had. These teachers appreciated the structure and sequence of the Learning Design because it reflected their own processes of thinking about how to create a context for learning. NH related, "When I saw this design, it was a way of organizing my thinking on topics, but leaving it open enough for my children to direct their own learning." SR had been studying constructivist learning for her inquiry project in her master's degree. She said, "This [CLD] gave purpose, and it happens on purpose all the time. It's just a nice way to sit down and organize what needs to go next."

• Building a learning community to develop trust and encourage risk-taking was essential. An environment of learning and a belief in a community of learners was critical to their success. Our participants pointed out that such a design could not flourish in a traditional, teacher-centered classroom. They focused on the importance of creating a safe atmosphere for risk taking. The kinds of public sharing of thinking which is required for the construction of knowledge cannot take place in a competitive, one-upping culture. RM suggested,
"There almost needs to be a cover letter to this design because, I think for all of us here, we're going by an understanding; that we set up risk-taking environments, that we do build communities, that we are continually building those communities, and modeling for our students what we do if we don't know something."
The same feeling was expressed by SR: "We work very hard at the beginning of the year developing a community and getting a sense of trust...A key piece, really, is continually building community. I think it is one of the most powerful things a teacher can do."
• Our participants described moving from a behaviorist approach to planning for teaching toward a constructivist approach to designing for learning. Moving from a teacher-centered way of planning, a la Madeline Hunter or traditional math teaching, was not easy or quick. NH reflected on her steps from initial training in Madeline Hunter lesson planning, to a whole language approach, to an inquiry approach to engaging learners. "I think that inquiry and constructivism are very similar, very much the same kinds of ideas, or ways of teaching." JZ, the math teacher, described his evolution in his thinking:
"I had to give up the old ways, in math, it's six-one, six-two, six-threeÉgive them a test. It was real orderly for me; it was nice. I had to struggle. It was much easier for me. This [CLD] is a lot more difficult, at least from the teacher's perspective."
Our participants described older students as resistant to changes in the way they were being asked to learn. JZ related not only his own struggle to change his practice, but also the resistance of his students to change. "By the time they're in the 11th or 12th grade, I had some real anger from kids who did very well in the traditional role. The kids with the best grades really revolted against it." SR described one such student, who "just had his knuckles down on my desk, leaning at me. Veins were bulging, clenching his teeth, 'Just give me the answer!'" RM had a similar experience with her 4th graders. "I had some students who were transfers, or new kids, and it was really hard for them to step up and read what they had written, or exhibit, or share. And we just kept working on it, allowing them to pass if they weren't comfortable." Even NH's second-graders were sometimes reluctant to tackle inquiry. "I have children very uncomfortable with this initially. They just want to know how to do this, 'How do I do this, do it for me.'"

Implications

The constructivist learning design made sense to these experienced teachers. They already had a value for learning, inquiry, reflection, and community, and the CLD was a fit with those values. We don't believe that any tool or way of thinking about learning can be handed to a professional without regard for what each already believes about education and schooling.

Each of our participants described a personal, individual journey of professional development, rather than a response to a school-wide or district-wide reform initiative. Their own maturity and sophistication in teaching was evident in their reflections about their growth and change as teachers.

Prospective and beginning teachers benefit from experiencing constructivist learning and having the process of designing for learning made visible by mentors. Inexperienced teachers can be engaged in learning, community building, inquiry, and reflection before they have the maturity to move away from planning for teaching and toward designing for learning. However, if they change their beliefs but don't know how to carry them out in their teaching then their classroom practice may not change. Systemic efforts at educational reform discount the important role of the individual teacher in embracing new practice, and many approaches have moved through schools as a "fad of the year."

Fosnot (1996) encourages us to understand that changing beliefs about knowledge is an essential ingredient in educational change.

If there is a key to reinventing our educational system, it lies in what our teachers believe about the nature of knowing. Without a reexamination and change in beliefs about the nature of knowing, there will be no substantial change in the enterprise of education; we will stay in a vicious cycle. (p. 202)

References

Collay, Michelle. (1990) Microteaching revisited: through the looking glass and what Alice found there. Symposium presented at the American Educational Research Association's annual meetings, Chicago, April.

Fosnot, Catherine. (1996) Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

1. What attracted you to this constructivist learning design for organizing your classroom teaching?

2. How would you describe one lesson you taught using this design?

3. How does the language of the six elements work for you?

a. Situation

b. Groupings

c. Bridge

d. Questions

e. Exhibit

f. Reflections

4. How do you include district and text objectives or outcomes in your designing for learning?

5. What lesson plan model does your district use to evaluate teachers?

For a detailed description of our Constructivist Learning Design follow this link:

Constructivist Learning Design

For a simplified version of our Constructivist Learning Design follow this link:

Constructivist Learning Design Notes