ePortfolios, Social Constructivism and Assessment: a match made in heaven

Stephen Bright Centre for Tertiary Teaching and Learning

Mahara Social Constructivism

Social Constructivism

Aaron Wells @ Catalyst

‘There is nothing so practical as a good theory’

(Kurt Lewin, 1951)

Social Constructivism (1)●New knowledge as building upon

the foundation of previous learning●Context important in shaping learners’ knowledge

development●Learning as an active rather than passive process●Language and other social tools important in

constructing knowledge

(Anderson & Dron, 2011)

Social Constructivism (2)

●Metacognition and evaluation as a means to develop learners’ capacity to assess their own learning

●Learning environment as learner-centred & stressing the importance of multiple perspectives

●Knowledge needing to be subject to social discussion, validation, and application in real world contexts (Anderson & Dron, 2011)

Social constructivist theme Mahara eportfolio affordances

Context is critical in shaping learners’ knowledge development

different eportfolio pages or collections can be contextualised for different purposes

Social constructivist theme Mahara eportfolio affordances

New knowledge builds upon the foundation of previous learning

Range of artefacts & reflection shows progression in learning and skills over a longer period of time (e.g. multi-year programmes)

Social constructivist theme Mahara eportfolio affordances

Learning as an active rather than passive process

student-centred, student actively creates pages and collections, and decides who it is shared with, for how long, what the other person(s) can view, and whether they can give feedback or not

Social constructivist theme Mahara eportfolio affordances

Language and other social tools’ importance in constructing knowledge

Student can use a range of language media - podcasts, video and images as well as written text as artefacts contributing to knowledge construction

Mahara Social Constructivism