Constructivism

Constructivism in the communication course for remote teams

To summarize learning scenario 2 from the behaviorism page, Kelly, a new tech project manager, is taking a communication training course to smoothen communication among her international team members who work remotely. The first training section was structured based on behaviorism with lectures and games to assess her foundational knowledge. Moving on to the second section, the course is structured with more discussion and interaction to bring prior knowledge to the individual situational issues. 

Zone of Proximal Development

The second section starts with a discussion with project managers in the training cohort who work with remote international teams. Kelly learns that her struggle is pretty common across other teams. With a constructivism-based approach, project managers share some tips that they tried in the first section. She is certain that she can use the tried-and-proven tips for her team to improve communication. She also recognizes there may be something useful, but she hasn’t learned yet. There is a gap between her ability and the area she hasn’t reached yet. This gap is defined by Vygotsky (as cited in McLeod, 2020) as the Zone of Proximal Development. 

Scaffolding strategy

Along with improving team communication, a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) mentor who is familiar with Cultural Intelligence (Peterson, 2004) navigates the cohort through effective scaffolding.

• Gaining and maintaining the learner’s interest in the task: MKO introduces the cohort to the concept of Cultural Intelligence.

• Make a task simple: MKO asks each trainee to take an assessment of the team communication by surveying the team members. 

• Emphasizing certain aspects that will help with the solution: MKO guides them to discover the root cause of the misunderstanding that is causing confusion among the team members. 

Social constructivist strategy

Kelly attends daily task meetings of a successful international team as a guest to gain insights on possible next steps. She observes the interaction among the team members, reflects on her learnings, and seeks discussion with the MKO mentor and other project managers in the cohort.