Do you think that actively interacting with materials and peers is important to learning? If your answer is yes, your primary theoretical orientation to learning may be constructivism.

Constructivism posits that learning is an active process, and the learner is a constructor of knowledge. Learners construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. Scaffolding, reciprocal teaching, and guided instruction are key teaching strategies used in the constructivism learning theory.

The constructivist instructor provides tools, plans problem-based learning activities, so that learners can construct ideas, make inferences, draw conclusions and inferences, and discuss their knowledge in a collaboartive learning environment. Instruction and assessment is student-centered and collaborative, and customized to learners’ prior knowledge. Assessments range from a variety of authentic, portfolios, contextual, and case-based projects.

To practically apply the constructivism learning theory to distance education, the faciliator takes a proactive approach to the construction of the class. The teacher sets the students up for independent learning activities in which they can collaborate with their peers to gain better insight into the topics being discussed. Additionally, the teacher can provide many different ways to assess student knowledge and understanding through portfolios and case-based projects instead of the standardized testing options.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.