"Contructivist Learning Environments (CLE) provide a question or issue, a case, a problem or a project that learners will attempt to solve. Ownership of the problem or learning goal is the key to meaningful learning. Students must be provided with interesting, relevant and engaging problems to solve."

Dr. Jonassen argues that since learning is a process of actively constructing knowledge by integrating experiences into the learners’ existing schemata, learning environments should support that process by providing multiple perspectives or interpretations of reality. Learning experiences should also enable knowledge construction in the learner through providing context-rich, experienced-based activities.

Jonassen developed the ideas of mindtools - computer based tools and learning environments that have been “adapted or developed to function as intellectual partners with the learner in order to engage and facilitate critical thinking and higher-order learning”.

Examples of mindtools are:

databases
semantic networks
expert systems and cognitive simulations for student modeling
multimedia/hypermedia

According to Jonassen, the role of a mindtool is to: extend the learner’s cognitive functioning during the learning process, and to engage the learner in operations while constructing knowledge that they would not have been able to accomplish otherwise. Mindtools enable learners to become critical thinkers.

Jonassen contends that mindtools could be enhanced through collaborative and cooperative efforts between and among students and teachers in the learning community. Jonassen believes in combining instructional design with various instructional technologies, especially television and other electronic media.

Jonassen describes himself as a constructivist, using mindtools (diagrams, schematics, flow-charts, virtual reality, and other methods), to represent knowledge, especially using generic applications to answer higher questions. Example: let students dictate their own pace of inquiry. As such, he incorporates computer organization, and associated flexibility, in a bottom-up approach to educational thinking.

Publications

Computer Mindtools for Schools

Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction : A Conversation, Thomas M. Duffy, David H. Jonassen (Editor)  1995

Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology : A Project of the Association for Educational  Communications and Technology David H. Jonassen(Editor), et al. 1993

Handbook of Individual Differences, Learning, and Instruction David H. Jonassen, Barbara L. Grabowski (Contributor).   1993

Handbook of Task Analysis Procedures David H. Jonassen, et al.  1989

Hypertext/Hypermedia 1989

Instructional Designs for Microcomputer Courseware David Jonassen (Editor). 1988

Learning With Technology : A Constructivist Perspective David H. Jonassen, et al.   1999

Nonbook Media : A Self-Paced Introductional Handbook for Teachers and Library Media David H., Jonassen  1982