1. Kirsti Lonka, PhD Faculty of Medicine University of Helsinki, Finland / Professor in Medical Education, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm IDEAS OF LEARNING BEHIND E-LEARNING?

2. DILEMMA I n EDUCATION = ANSWERING QUESTIONS NOBODY HAS ASKED

3. ONE SOLUTION n WHAT ABOUT BASING INSTRUCTION ON QUESTIONS, THEN?

4. MENTAL MODELS? n guide our attention, perception & memory n not copies of reality, but emphasize things that are important for us n emotions, attitudes, values n are ”the truth”

5. CONSTRUCTIVIST IDEAS ON LEARNING n Learning is actively constructing an interpretation of the world n This process is question-driven and explanation-driven n Knowledge acquisition is a question- answer -process n Learning is a process for working toward more thorough understanding

6. TWO MODES OF THINKING NARRATIVE/ MYTHOS -”what makes up a good story?” - myths, beliefs - experiential - holistic, emotional - subconscious, free PARADIGMATIC/ LOGOS - ”what is the truth?” - factual knowledge - logical - analytic, rational - conscious, controlled

7. THE PROBLEM OF DEAD (INERT) KNOWLEDGE RISKS, PROBABILITY MY OWN GRANNY? THE REASONING PROCESS

8. THE REVIVAL OF DEAD KNOWLEDGE

9. WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE? n Traditional answer: Knowledge is proven of confirmed - people find truths n Contemporary answer: Knowledge is not proven, only disconfirmed - people construct temporary explanations that best fit current knowledge n Postmodern answer: All knowledge or interpretations equally valid - people construct personal understanding

10. ACTIVATING INSTRUCTION (Lonka & Ahola, 1995, Eur Jour Educ Psych) 1. Activate and diagnose: Ask students to describe what they think about a phenomenom before instruction 2. Support the process: Scaffold learning, make thinking processes overt 3. Give feedback during and after the learning process. APPLICATIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVIST IDEAS I

11. APPLICATIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVIST IDEAS II PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING (Schmidt, 1983) - start with an ill-defined problem which calls for explanation - start with an ill-defined problem which calls for explanation - ask the students to brainstorm and construct a model - let the students pose the questions and set the learning goals - guide the learning process by tutoring

12. APPLICATIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVIST IDEAS III PROGRESSIVE INQUIRY LEARNING: - starts from a problem calling for explanation - the inquiry process is socially distributed - inquiry gradually progresses from a working theory toward more specific questions - CSILE (Scardamalia, Bereiter et al.): an environment for building, articulating, exploring, and structuring knowledge in elementary schools

13. DISTRIBUTED EXPERTISE? n SOCIALLY DISTRIBUTED COGNITION: people can overcome their limitations in thinking and inference by shared problem solving - together they can solve problems that would be too complex for one person n PHYSICALLY DISTRIBUTED COGNITION cognitive load may be divided between a human being and external thinking tools (e.g., computers, written documents)

14. ELEMENTS OF PROGRESSIVE INQUIRY (Hakkarainen 1998; Hakkarainen, Lonka & Lipponen, 1999) Setting up Research Questions Creating the Context Constructing Working Theories Critical Evaluation Searching Deepening Knowledge Generating SubordiGnate Questions Developing New Working Theories Distributed expertise

15. THE MAIN CHALLENGES OF LEARNING n Take into account prior beliefs n Apply socially shared problem solving: negotiate the meaning n Make use of differences between people as well as frictions between old and new knowledge n Make use of the narrative mode of thinking n Neither common sense nor facts work alone