Education-Oriented Research Activities Conducted in Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 330

Teaching in SL: Constructivists
or Objectivists?

other Avatars or explore a wide range of
resources offered in SL. For example, the
art major students explore other art sites
and language learners practice foreign lan-
guage with classmates or native speakers.

Specific instructional approaches are always based
on or guided by epistemologies: beliefs about the
origins, nature, and limits of human knowledge
(Lebow, 1993). Sometimes, these differences of
opinion have generated strident debate in the lit-
erature (Baines & Stanley, 2000). The traditional
division of approaches to learning into behaviour-
ist and constructivist has led to a perception that
the two are opposites (Reeves & Harmon, 1994).
This would mean that any given learning experi-
ence would either be objectivist or constructivist,
or anywhere between the two, but, essentially, as
one goes up, the other has to go down. There are
explicit evidence that constructivist goes up and
objectivist goes down with teaching in Second
Life. Some of the evidences are reflected in teach-
ing in SL are summarized as follows.

• Types of activities: Although Molenda

(1991) observed, an either-or stance be-
tween behaviorism and constructivism
seems to gain us little for instructors.
Rather, both sides need to find a way to
merge the two approaches in a way that
will benefit learners and teachers, instruc-
tional models based on constructivism are
highly suggested due to the salient features
of SL, such as being interactive and im-
mersive. On the other hand, since SL can
be effectively integrated with face-to-face,
and other asynchronous online teaching
models, directed instruction models can
be used in these teaching models, as Sfard
(1998) agrees that “one metaphor is not
enough” (p.10) to explain how all learning
take place or address all problems inherent
in learning.

• Teacher's role: Constructivists believe

that people construct knowledge by partic-
ipating in certain experience (Sfard, 1998),
and teachers are guides and facilitators as
students generate their own knowledge. As
we summarized earlier, most of the SL in-
structional models are constructivist in that
teachers provide collaborative resources
and assist students in learning about dif-
ferent topics. It would be much less mean-
ingful if university instructors use SL to
only deliver directed instruction. Digital
class room or face-to-face class will be
more effective medium than SL for direct
instruction.

Intrinsic Motivation

Generally speaking, SL is not for play, and it
is vastly different from other massive multiple
online role-playing games (MMORPGs). How-
ever, it shares similarities with MMORPGs since
they are both MUVEs. MUVEs enable multiple
participants to simultaneously access virtual con-
texts, to interact with digital artifacts, to represent
themselves through avatars, to communicate with
other participants and with computer-based agents,
and to engage in collaborative learning activi-
ties of various types (Dick, 2007). Dick further
pointed out that the core of MMORPG design is
a narrative interactive environment, and what is
most significant about the design of an MMORPG
is that it is an open-ended environment and it al-
lows players to choose, to challenge and achieve
while helping players to progress and learn. A

• Students' role: In the immersive and in-

teractive 3-D virtual environment, students
usually collaborate through their Avatars to
increase ability to work independently and
with others. It is rare to see that students
are sitting in a virtual classroom in SL and
passively participating in the classes. They
constantly interact and cooperate with