Constructivism

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Constructivism “A constructivist learning setting differs greatly from one based on the traditional model. In the constructivist classroom the teacher becomes a guide for the learner, providing bridging or scaffolding, helping to extend the learner's zone of proximal development. The student is encouraged to develop meta-cognitive skills such as reflective thinking and problem solving techniques. The independent learner is intrinsically motivated to generate, discover, build and enlarge her/his own framework of knowledge ( [|__source__] ).

The theory of constructivism is based on the thought that new knowledge is derived when the learner creates meaning from an authentic experience or some incoming new knowledge; and when the learner shares with others and personalizes this experience into new learning.

A good constructivist teacher takes what a student knows already and expands on it, acting as a facilitator instead of a lecturer. It is a way of constructing our own understanding and knowledge in a collaborative way. Examples of current uses -
 * 1) Teacher as guide to organize and provide direction
 * 2) interactive dialogue in classroom using Internet and email
 * 3) Collaboration - i.e. Google Apps, wikis, Moodle and Blackboard
 * 4) Montessori schools - constructivist based learning

An overview of this theory of learning can be found in [|__this source__] : Constructivism: Implications for the Design and Delivery of Instruction by Thomas M. Duffy and Donald J. Cunningham. “... (instruction) should be designed to support a dialogue between the child and his or her future; not a dialogue between the child and the adult's (i.e. teacher’s) history. Adult wisdom does not provide a … (final understanding of the knowledge for the learner - the teacher should provide the material, not their perception or understanding of it - rather to have the learner draw out the knowledge of the material by himself).

Also available in the above source was a discussion from Griffin and Cole's (1984) about the zone of proximal development "This view emphasizes the constructive activity of the individual as he or she tries to make sense of the world. Learning is seen to occur when the learner's expectations are not met, and he or she must resolve the discrepancy between what was expected and what was actually encountered." [|__Web source__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> - David Wees's blog

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here is a <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__Timeline__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of the key players in the theory of constructivism.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__Social Historical Context__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> document. It is arranged chronologically and maps out our thoughts of how constructivism was shaping itself as a learning theory depending on the social context at the time in our history.

Key Players: Jean Piaget


Jean Piaget kept a strict daily schedule, arising at 4 a.m. to write, then on to teach his classes. At lunch he would walk, and he read extensively in the evening.

Born in Switzerland in 1896, Piaget was a scientific child prodigy. At age eleven he was writing biology articles for science journals. He kept is age secret because some believed his young age undermined his credibility.

Piaget graduated from Neuchatel University in 1916, and earned his doctorate in 1918. In the ensuing years he studied epistemology, and psychology, and then worked on standardized reasoning tests with Simon Binet

In his work on these tests he developed his belief that you learn more from children by examining their thinking process, especially on those answers that are **technically incorrect**.This was the beginning of his work on how children learn.

Jerome Bruner introduced Piaget's ideas to America after they were translated in the 1950's. At this time American education was focused on teaching kids to think. This Piaget's ideas were favored over those behaviorists, or the stimulus-response theory of learning.

Key Players: Lev Vygotsky


Born in 1896 in Tsarist Russia, Vygotsky won a place at the University of Moscow in the Jewish lottery. The humanities courses at Moscow weren't enough, so he went to Staniavsky University to study history and psychology. He graduated from both universities in 1917.

After graduation, Vygotsky returned to his hometown, Gomel, Belarus, to teach high school. He developed into a leading thinker in his local environment.

He delivered a speech at the Second Psychological Congress in Leningrad on 6 January 1924. Subsequently he was invited by Alexander Luriais to join the research team at the Moscow Institute of Psychology.

Over the next ten years Vygotsky published, worked with displaced refugees and in clinics with physically and mentally handicapped people. He believed in the Russian Revolution and endeavored to forward it's ideals.

Vygotsky died of tuberculosis in 1934. His works were published after 1934, but suppressed in 1936. They were not known in the west until 1958.

Vygotsky's ideas have been accepted as agreeing in great measure with the theories of Piaget, but developed independently and simultaneously.

Vygotsky also created what is now called the Vygotsky Circle. This was a group of intellectuals who met and corresponded to discuss the sciences of brain, mind, and behavior. This conversation formed the foundation of what what later called the integrative science of cultural-historical psychology.

Lev Vygotsky's life had been hidden from the west behind Soviet Union's distance which developed in the decades after the Russian Revolution. Vygotsky seemed to have been a person who operated initially within his hometown and it's immediate environs. He taught high school, led local discussion groups, worked in clinics with mentally and physically impaired people. All of this experience was not lost, for he followed his ideas methodically and was able to publish works that attracted some of the leading Soviet scientists of the day. After his death his works were widely distributed until 1936 when the Stalin regime clamped down. The fact that Vygotsky's ideas flourished in the west after being translated in 1958 indicates that his ideas were innovative and seminal to modern conceptions of human thought, language, learning and behavior during the post-revolution era.