Constructivist or Instructivist: Pedagogical Concepts Practically Applied to a Computer Learning Environment

摘要

This paper discusses an innovative use of information technology in supporting the learning and teaching of sampling and quantisation within the Multimedia Computing curriculum. Three parallel on-line learning resources were developed to teach the principles of sampling to Multimedia Computing undergraduates: one highly interactive Flash artefact was developed on the basis of constructivist principles; a second drill-based html resource followed instructivist principles; and a third combined the two strategies. This paper reports the practical and conceptual exploration of what it means to take a constructivist or instructivist, or mixed approach to the design of learning software. All three resources were tested with distinctive groups of students in order to explore and contrast the relative short-term benefits of the different pedagogical approaches to learning software development. The results indicated that a combined constructivist resource offered the learner a deeper knowledge of waveform sampling; the question of longer-term retention and transferable understanding can only be answered by means of longitudinal research.