xPRO course materials blend the following pedagogical strategies to best achieve the learning objectives of each program, course, and individual module.
Instructivism: Teacher-centered learning where the instructor defines the learning goals and presents relevant content.
For example:
- Tutorial videos enhanced with animations and graphics
- Text-based pages with supplementary pictures, charts, exhibits and illustrations
Constructivism: Learning-by-doing approach that encourages learners to “construct” their own understandings through the act of creating. Ideally, learners create an artifact that a real-world practitioner would create.
For example:
- Project-based work
- Graded and ungraded practice activities
Anchored Instruction: A learning experience is “anchored” in a central narrative such as a case study or piece of media. Learners see new knowledge or skills applied in context. At regular intervals, learners utilize the knowledge or skills outlined in the anchor in various parallel contexts enabling them to cognitively situate instructivist content within the central narrative.
For example:
- Case studies
- Project-based work
Connectivism: Learning through others. Social interaction emphasizes the cycle of sharing and consuming information as a member of a social learning network as a means of refining mental models and forming interdisciplinary connections. Learners are encouraged to make connections and identify patterns between knowledge nodes through their interactions with their peers. They are also encouraged to seek answers to questions from the community, with course staff supporting these interactions.
For example:
- Discussion forum collaborations
- Project-based work collaboration
- Polls and word clouds with real-time results