LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations 2019 Toward a Unified Computer Learning Theory: Critical Techno Constructivism Bryan Philip Sanders Loyola Marymount University, bryansanders@me.com Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/etd Part of the Educational Technology Commons Recommended Citation Sanders, Bryan Philip, "Toward a Unified Computer Learning Theory: Critical Techno Constructivism" (2019). LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations.edu/etd/901 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@lmu.
LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY Toward a Unified Computer Learning Theory: Critical Techno Constructivism by Bryan Philip Sanders A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the School of Education, Loyola Marymount University, in partial satisfaction of the requirement for the degree Doctor of Education 2019 Toward a Unified Computer Learning Theory: Critical Techno Constructivism Copyright © 2019 by Bryan Philip Sanders ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have many people to thank for their intellectual, emotional, and financial support through this process. The daily inspiration that my wife, Lorraine, provided me is something that I could not have mustered on my own. Thank you, my dearest partner, for sustaining me. You light a fire in me each day and I am grateful for your love and care.
I am lost without you. I love you, Lorri. And to my beloved son, Florian, thank you for your running commentary on my progress as a doctoral student and for your ever-present sense of what is wrong and right, bad and good, for your level head is one that I admire and look to as a model of how best to live. You are far along on your path to becoming the greatest version of yourself, which I know will far surpass me.
Not a day goes by that I don’t love and care for everything that you do and say. I love you, Florian. Our family dog, Wolfie, I thank you for tolerating me as I woke you up endless times during your many naps to burrow my face into your fluffiness and relieve some stress that inevitably arose from this process. Wolfie, you are a sweet and great pal.
To my mother, Elizabeth, thank you for paying for me to go back to school and for believing in me to improve my career options. Your tales and quips of wisdom and balance are always ricocheting inside my skull and have kept me calm throughout this process. I am on my way to becoming something that I am impressed with and I owe so much to you. I love you, mom.
To my aunt, Rela, thank you for your endless supply of positivity and turkey burgers. I would be depressed and hungry without you. You are very important to me and my family. To Richard, I thank you for not giving Kenny the black Lexus––let's just hope he believes that story you invented about the busted transmission.
And truly, thank you for always helping me and my family with all the various pieces of mundane life that never stopped happening while I was in iii this process. To my brother and sister-in-law, Kenny and Karen, thank you for going into debt while I attended college. I hope you think it was worth it. And to my father, Harvey, who would have given Kenny the black Lexus, I wish you could see what I am up to because I could not have imagined it when I started my career as an educator––that was the same year that you died and it still feels like it just happened.
I don’t think you’re looking down on me because you never taught me to believe in heaven and angels and god, but I do think that you are inside of me and I am grateful for that. I just wish that you would answer when I try to call, so could you please work on that? To my mentors and friends and people I met on Twitter, everything that you have said and done is part of my journey and process. I am always thinking about your questions and comments. Please never stop goading me because it is in those moments of contention that my strength rises and seeks the challenge of what is before me.
Elizabeth Reilly, you are the embodiment and model of the tough and tender scholar, researcher, and human that I wish to become. I know that with you guiding my work that I will find success. Thank you for welcoming me into your home, feeding my soul and my stomach, and for believing in my work and me. I am typically a loner, but I have found great comfort and inspiration in your companionship and sharp intellectual insights.
Liza Mastrippolito, you are the one who told me to formally ask Dr. Reilly to be my chair––it was pretty obvious, but I totally missed it, (silly man that I am) and I would not have had the support I needed if you didn’t first catch it. I am grateful for your friendship in our time together in this cohort and now graduating together. Thank you! iv To Dr.
Shane Martin, it is really your fault that I am here in the first place, and for that I am eternally grateful. You dared me into a doctoral degree when I came to you looking for new ideas about where to work––turns out that you were right, for I can see my path more clearly now. I think fondly about when we met in 1997 during my master's degree program at LMU and continue to hold you in the highest regard. You are an essential part of my story as an educator.
Your belief in me for all these years has helped me to stand tall and believe in myself. I met you as I began my career and lost my father. You may never know the value of your patronage, but I know you can imagine it. Thank you, dear friend.
Philip Molebash and Ernesto Colín, I am honored to have you both on my team as I complete this project. Your wisdom is unparalleled, and your accomplishments are diverse. I am inspired when you speak and gain insight into the nitty gritty of my topic, and really any topic, when you share ideas and citations. I especially enjoy listening to you both debate and engage in respectful disagreement.
You are models of excellence that I hold as pure examples of that scholar that I wish to become. Please keep sending me articles to read and challenging my assumptions. You are both deep wells of wisdom and inspiration. Jill Bickett, I thank you for never giving up on me and for even finding me funny at times.
I am forever indebted that you accepted me into the program and helped me to find my way and thrive. You are an incredible leader who knows how to handle even the most difficult of students. I have learned a lot from your patience and care and tutelage. And to everyone I did not name in this acknowledgment section, I am grateful to have you in my life and I care for you deeply.
I have a very full life because you are in it. Thank you for accepting me into your homes, your conversations, your meals, your vacations, your v classrooms, your gatherings, and your lives. Ours is a world of ideas and creatures––I love being alive with all of you creatures and your ideas. Here is to the unknown unknown––may it continue to breed imagination.
Bryan Philip Sanders, 2019 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .iii LIST OF TABLES. ix LIST OF FIGURES. xi CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY. 1 The Problem of Behaviorism and Cognitivism.
1 Background of the Problem. 3 Human Success Cannot Be Predetermined. 4 Having Computers Does Not Mean the Future Has Arrived. 4 Statement of the Problem.
6 Purpose of the Study. 8 Significance of the Study. 14 Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations. 14 Definition of Terms.
19 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 22 Distance Learning and Development of Computer. 22 A History of Distance Learning. 22 A History of Computers and Classrooms.
25 The teaching machine. 29 Computer assisted instruction. 35 Literature Review, Major Concepts of Extant Theories. 52 Disrupt the Traditional Reality of Schools by Augmenting It.
54 Tying Ideas Together and Leading to Connectivism. 56 What is a 3DVLE?. 60 Constructivism at The Woods Hole Conference, 1959. 71 Issues in Educational Technology.
73 Congressional Hearing in 1995, Technology in Education. 81 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND FRAMEWORK. 87 Collect the Research Evidence. 87 Organize the Concepts.
90 Align the History. 92 Evaluate Seminal Works. 93 Synthesize Concepts via Document Analysis. 94 CHAPTER 4: STUDY OF SEMINAL WORKS: DOCUMENT ANALYSIS.
97 John Dewey’s Democracy and Education (1916). 98 Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970). 158 Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980). 233 CHAPTER 5: CRITICAL TECHNO CONSTRUCTIVISM.
234 Critical Techno Constructivism. 237 Critical Techno Constructivist Mindset. 243 What is Next?. 269 viii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1.
Existing Theoretical Precepts. Conversion of Theoretical Precepts to Excerpting Codes. Instances of “Technoconstructivism” in Full Text Searches. Significant Instances of Code Co-Occurrence.
Significant Instances of Code Pair Co-Occurrence. Tenets of Critical Techno Constructivism. Number of Times Each Code in Dedoose on Excerpts from Seminal Works. Types and Examples of Educational software.
257 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Proposed main topics for unified learning theory. The cycles of information moving from appropriation to individualization. Cycles of information including spirals of time.
58 x ABSTRACT Toward a Unified Computer Learning Theory: Critical Techno Constructivism by Bryan Philip Sanders Why did we ever purchase computers and place them along the wall or in the corner of a classroom? Why did we ever ask students to work individually at a computer? Why did we ever dictate that students should play computer games or answer questions built from a narrow data set? And why are we still doing this with computers in classrooms today? This approach has contributed to a systemic problem of low student engagement in course materials and little inclusion of student voice, particularly for traditionally underrepresented students. New transformational tools and pedagogies are needed to nurture students in developing their own ways of thinking, posing problems, collaborating, and solving problems. Of interest, then, is the predominance in today’s classrooms of programmed learning and teaching machines that we dub 21st century learning. We have not yet fully harnessed the transformational power and potential of the technology that schools already possess and that many students are bringing on their own.
This dissertation aims to address what is missing in best practices of technology in the classroom. Herein these pages will be performed a document analysis of cornerstone books xi written by John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and Seymour Papert. This analysis will be in the form of annotations comprised of the author’s experience as an experienced educator and researcher, and founded in the extant relevant theories of critical theory, technology, and constructivism. The three philosophers were selected for their contributions to constructivism and their urgings to liberate the student from an oppressive system.
With a different approach to educational technology, students could be working towards something greater than themselves or the coursework, something with a passionate purpose derived from student inquiry. Instead of working at the computer and having a “one and done” experience, students could be actively transforming their studies and their world.