Constructivism

What is Constructivism?
Constructivism is a theory about the way in which people learn. It holds the belief that people construct their own understanding of the world through their experiences and reflection upon those experiences. Two very important constructivist thinkers are Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. The formal theory of constructivism is generally attributed to Piaget, who articulated the process by which knowledge is internalized by learners. This quote summarizes Piaget’s main arguments:

“[Piaget] suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. When individuals assimilate, they incorporate the new experience into an already existing framework without changing that framework. This may occur when individuals' experiences are aligned with their internal representations of the world, but may also occur as a failure to change a faulty understanding; for example, they may not notice events, may misunderstand input from others, or may decide that an event is a fluke and is therefore unimportant as information about the world. In contrast, when individuals' experiences contradict their internal representations, they may change their perceptions of the experiences to fit their internal representations. According to the theory, accommodation is the process of reframing one's mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences. Accommodation can be understood as the mechanism by which failure leads to learning: when we act on the expectation that the world operates in one way and it violates our expectations, we often fail, but by accommodating this new experience and reframing our model of the way the world works, we learn from the experience of failure, or others' failure.”

Constructivism in the Classroom
In the most general sense, the constructivist view of the classroom usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on what they are doing and how their knowledge is changing.

Teachers are viewed as facilitators in this process of reflection. It is the teachers role to guide the student, prompting them to consistently assess what new information they are gaining. The following example can be quite useful to understand this process:

“Groups of students in a science class are discussing a problem in physics. Though the teacher knows the "answer" to the problem, she focuses on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She prompts each student to reflect on and examine his or her current knowledge. When one of the students comes up with the relevant concept, the teacher seizes upon it, and indicates to the group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to explore. They design and perform relevant experiments. Afterward, the students and teacher talk about what they have learned, and how their observations and experiments helped (or did not help) them to better understand the concept.”

Differences between the traditional classroom
Classes that are practicing constructivist theories tend to be more student-centered. The students are urged to be actively involved in their learning. Furthermore, in the constructivist classroom, “both teacher and students think of knowledge not as inert factoids to be memorized, but as a dynamic, ever-changing view of the world we live in and the ability to successfully stretch and explore that view.” The chart below discusses some of the main differences between traditional and constructivist classrooms.



In a constructivist classroom, the learning is:
• Constructed
• Active
• Reflective
• Collaborative
• Inquiry-based
• Evolving

Within the context of constructivism, assessment is seen as “inextricably linked”. Holt and Willard-Holt (2000) emphasize the concept of dynamic assessment, which is a way of assessing the true potential of learners that differs significantly from conventional tests. Here the essentially interactive nature of learning is extended to the process of assessment. Rather than viewing assessment as a process carried out by one person, such as an instructor, it is seen as a two-way process involving interaction between both instructor and learner. The role of the assessor becomes one of entering into dialogue with the persons being assessed to find out their current level of performance on any task and sharing with them possible ways in which that performance might be improved on a subsequent occasion. (Holt and Willard-Holt 2000).

The criticism of constructivism has been given from scientists and educators. The following summarizes what many critics consider the downfall to constructivism:

“Other educators are also beginning to question the effectiveness of this approach toward instructional design, especially as it applies to the development of instruction for novices (Mayer, 2004; Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, 2006). While some constructivists argue that "learning by doing" enhances learning, critics of constructivism have argued that little empirical evidence exists to support this statement given novice learners (Mayer, 2004; Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, 2006). Sweller and his colleagues argue that novices do not possess the underlying mental models or "schemas" necessary for "learning by doing" (e.g. Sweller, 1988). Indeed, Mayer (2004) even suggests that fifty years of empirical data do not support using the constructivist teaching technique of pure discovery; in those situations requiring discovery, he argues for the use of guided discovery instead.”