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{Home > About > Centers & Programs > IAP > Fellowships : Anne Bentley}

Anne Bentley

Anne Bentley is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric Department. She received the 2002 Unisys Fellowship.

CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO CURRICULUM:
Implications for Online Education

A constructivist approach to curriculum focuses on curriculum "understanding" rather than "development." This research addresses four aspects of curriculum and pedagogy that demonstrate divergent approaches between constructivists and traditionalists: 1) the roles of teachers and learners; 2) the nature of knowledge and how it is constructed; 3) role of social interaction in the learning process, and 4) the purpose and use of technology. Perceptions about knowledge—how it is constructed and disseminated—are key to understanding the other three aspects. Responsibility for knowledge creation—either by learners or by external experts - affects the roles of teachers and learners, the importance of social interaction in the learning process, and how technology is, or should be, used to deliver educational "products." However, in an online learning environment, where face-to-face interactions and built-in controls between teachers and learners are absent, these four aspects of curriculum take on new importance and require different forms of implementation. This research questions whether the contributions of constructivist curriculum are, or can be, achieved in an online environment, and how we evaluate online courses in terms of curriculum orientation.