Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught. Basing from the Cone of Experience of Edgar Dale,this process becomes more meaningful and tends to stay longer in the mind of the learners when they are able to do the real thing or participate actively and explore on the learning activities as well as when they are able to relate the importance of the lesson in the context of real life. When an activity makes the students explore and be on such realization during the teaching-learning process, it is called as Constructivism approach. Notice the difference between the two scenarios on the picture below.
A theory of knowledge and learning that is based on the idea that knowledge is constructed by the learner based on mental activity is "Constructivism".With this, the learner builds a personal understanding through right learning activities and a good learning environment. According to Glatthorn, this approach makes the learners the maker and a solver of problems. Learners are considered to be active participants in seeking meaning. Constructivism is founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we consciously live in. Each of us makes our own "rules" and "mental models," which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences. Constructions of meaning may initially bear little relationship to reality (as in the naive theories of children), but will become increasingly more complex, differentiated and realistic as time goes on.
Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980)
According to Ozgur Ozer, Piaget's developmental theory of learning and constructivism are based on discovery. According to his constructivist theory, in order to provide an ideal learning environment children should be allowed to construct knowledge that is meaningful for them.
Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934)
He is known for his social constructivism because of the significance of culture and social context. For Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development . . . the distance between the actual development of a child as determined by the independent problem solving, and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more peers suggests that cognitive development is limited to a certain range at a particular age. However, with the help of social interaction, such as assistance from a mentor, students can comprehend concepts and schemes that they cannot know on their own.
1.) Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted.
2.) Prior knowledge impacts the learning process.
3.) Initial understanding is local, not global.
4.) Building useful knowledge structures requires purposeful and with effort activity.
The most accepted principles of constructivism are:
1.) Learning consists in what a person can actively assemble for himself and not what he can receive passively.
2.) The role of learning is to help is to help the individual live or adapt to his personal world.
The two principles of constructivism in turn lead to three practical implications:
1.) The learning is directly responsible for the learning. He creates personal understanding and transforms information into knowledge. The teacher plays an indirect role by modeling effective learning, assisting, facilitating and encouraging learners.
2.) The context of meaningful learning consists in the learner "connecting" his school activity with real life.
3.) The purpose of education is the acquisition of practice and personal knowledge, not abstract or universal truths.
1.) Curriculum is taught as a whole - "big concept"
2.) Teaches seek point of view/ learning method
3.) Teacher-student interaction encouraged
4.) Activities based on the primary sources
5.) Technology used to help in teaching
6.) Hands-on teaching methods
7.) "Coaching" students
1.) Viewed as a thinker - "outside the box"
2.) Computer usage encouraged
3.) Exhibitions and portfolios
4.) Interactive environment
5.) Primarily group work
6.) Student involvement
According to Dougjamas (1998), each types of constructivism are "points of view", perspectives loosely defined by a collection of writings of particular individuals in each case. These sections represent popular labels in constructivist literature used as shorthand to indicate there different groups of ideas.
1.) Trivial Constructivism
The simplest idea in constructivism, root of all the other shades of constructivism. In this principle, Knowledge is actively constructed by the learner, not passively received from the environment. Click here for you to be directed to the page discussing about this type of constructivism.
2.) Radical Constructivism
This adds a second principle to trivial constructivism. : Coming to know is a process of dynamic adaptation towards viable interpretations of experience. The learner does not necessarily construct knowledge of a "real world."
3.) Social Constructivism or Socio-Constructivism
The social world of a learner includes the people that directly affect that person, including teachers, friends, students, administrators and participants in all forms of activity. This takes into account the social nature of both and local processes in collaborative learning and in the discussion of wider social collaboration in a given subject, such as science.
4.) Cultural Constructivism
Beyond the immediate social environment of learning sitation are the wider context of cultural influences, including custom, religion, biology, tools and language. For example, the format of books can affect learning by promoting views about the organisation, accessibility and status of the information they contain.
5.) Critical Constructivism
This type looks at constructivism within a social and cultural environment, but adds a critical dimension aimed at reforming these environments in order to improve the success of constructivism applied as a referent.
6.) Constructionism
This asserts that constructivism occurs especially well when the learner is engaged in constructing something for others to see.
Constructivist teaching practices are designed to help students internalize new information in order to create new understanding. To a constructivist, challenging students is more than memorizing material to pass a standardized test. It involves developing new cognitive structures leading to more sophisticated meanings. The ability to solve difficult problems depends on the knowledge, skills and strategies an individual possesses generally and in a specific domain. To the constructivist, instruction is a developmental process that begins with a student's current level of functioning and moves him/her along a continuum toward expert performance.
Constructivist concepts are important for using them in the classroom is beneficial to both students and teachers. Integrating technology to promote students interactions and involvement has positive effect in the classroom. It promotes hands-on learning experience for the entire class and is shown to be very efficient. Constructivism itself is very revolutionary because it allows students to discover for themselves a large amount of information about any topic.
This type of group learning will reduce the dissemination of false data, prejudice, and atrocities among diverse groups and help build a moral, scientific, information society in the new millennium. Be it developmental or social as suggested by Piaget and Vygotsky respectively, learning is the central activity for humans in search for understanding the causes and effects of natural phenomena, the progress of social events, and the meaning of life. By using such learning approaches, teachers can better introduce to children of the world that God has created for us, and lead them to think about the miracles that are all around us.
References: http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Constructivism
http://www.slideshare.net/mikeparent/constructivism-2645628
http://www.lecforum.org/publications/constructivism.htm
http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/CONSTRUCTIVISM-in-Piaget-and-Vygotsky
http://www.slideshare.net/ben-haynes88/constructivist-learning-theory#btnNext
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