The Library Trainer as Constructivist eLearner

Image: Instructional Design by Lauren Pressley

Like many others I’m learning how to do most of my job on the fly. Because the precepts of my own learning  require me to share, I thought I’d air my own personal learning adventures in case there are others in the same situation. Learning Just In Time, I’m grappling Andragogy (Adult Learning theory) and Instructional Design theory so that I can effectively build professional learning plans in a Learning Management System for HMCPL staff.

After my recommendation, we have a brand new installation of Moodle, the leading open source LMS application in the educational community, as the basis for what will be a series of competency-based learning plans for staff. While it’s still in the ITS testing phase, I’m trying to get in the right frame of mind before I begin. Of the three learning theories (Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism) Moodle’s philosophy is guided by a “social constructionist pedagogy” which might be perfectly suited for library staff learning. The concept behind PLCMC’s “23 Things” seems to be an excellent example of Constructivism, in that by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in.

While there are There are Model-Based Usability Heuristics for Constructivist e-Learning, I do plan on submitting a budget request so that I may participate in a Moodle-based class titled “Implementing Online Teaching and Learning: Using Moodle and Other Web 2.0 Features” by Diane K. Kovaks. Until then, I’ve come up with a syllabus of my own: I’m subscribed to eLearning Learning Community’s feed for Instructional Design to keep up with the latest posts on the subject and I’m absorbing well. I’m following Thursday evenings’ #lrnchat on Twitter. Though still at the legitimate peripheral participation (lurking) stage, I spoke up just this week and was rewarded with good conversation about learning. Moodle tutorials (2 Minute Moodles) are to familiarize myself with the Moodle interface, while Martin Ryder of the University of Colorado at Denver School of Education has compiled an exhaustive list of Instructional Design Models and I’m working through those.

Interesting that Catherine Lombardozzi is studying the Constructivist theory within the ADDIE Instructional Design Model to develop a Learning Environment Design model.  A more common, systematic approach to eLearning, the ADDIE model get’s it’s name from the following five components: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. Raleigh Way of Georgia Southern University’s Center for Online Learning says that ADDIE is a “strategic planning of a course. It is a blueprint that you design and follow. It helps us connect all the dots to form a clear picture of teaching and learning events” and has an excellent set of tutorials here.

Thought recently maligned, I appreciate the systemic manner and fluid hierarchy of ADDIE, and the more I study it more I feel this approach can be given to almost any talk, course or series of learning opportunities.

In TechSoup’s recent webinar Tech Training Made Simple with Online Videos with Lee Lefever (creator of those fabulous CommonCraft videos) I asked Lee if he had any tips for library trainers on teaching technology. His reply was to tell a story with a sympathetic character, then solve that character’s problem. A dominating thread in his videos, we all relate to his characters and scenarios. While there is debate among professional Instructional Designers about the lack of ID theory in CommonCraft videos, there is no doubt as to their effectiveness on the adult learner. I know I’m just at the beginning of my learning journey here and that there are many experts to learn from. but this is the level of ‘explainability’ that I hope to achieve in our staff learning plans.

Do you have recommendations for creating courseware which inspires learning at the CommonCraft level? If so, please share. If it can’t be done, then why?

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