Sustaining Students: Retention Strategies in an Online Program

The following is from Constructivism and Online Education by Doolittle:

Constructivism is a theory of knowledge acquisition, not a theory of pedagogy; thus, the nexus of constructivism and online education is tentative, at best. Constructivism posits that knowledge acquisition occurs amid four assumptions:

1. Knowledge involves active cognizing by the individual.
2. Knowledge is adaptive, facilitating individual and social efficacy.
3. Knowledge is subjective and self-organized, not objective.
4. Knowledge acquisition involves both sociocultural and individual processes.

These four assumptions have led, indirectly, to eight primary pedagogical recommendations:

1. Learning should take place in authentic and real-world environments.
2. Learning should involve social negotiation and mediation.
3. Content and skills should be made relevant to the learner.
4. Content and skills should be understood within the framework of the learner’s prior knowledge.
5. Students should be assessed formatively, serving to inform future learning experiences.
6. Students should be encouraged to become self-regulatory, self-mediated, and self-aware.
7. Teachers serve primarily as guides and facilitators of learning, not instructors.
8. Teachers should provide for and encourage multiple perspectives and representations of content.

The question then arises, can an online medium support this pedagogy that is based on the constructivist assumptions?

More on Constructivism

• Read all of Doolittle’s Constructivism and Online Education information including Types of Constructivism, Constructivist Pedagogy, etc.