Constructivism
Whereas associationism held that knowledge and learning were constructed by associating one item with another, and behaviorism held that knowledge and learning were only a matter of stimulus and response, Constructivism holds that knowledge and learning are based on past knowledge and learning, that they are constructed or build up upon other knowledge. Unlike associationism and behaviorism, constructivism is concerned primarily with learning rather than with behavior and/or thoughts and knowledge.
The process of building upon prior knowledge is an active one, one in which the learner must be engaged. Learners fit together new information based on what they already know (lindapg1.htm). Dougiamas has summed up constructivism by using a principle attributed to Jean Piaget, “Knowledge is actively constructed by the learner, not passively received from the environment,” (1998).
Savery and Duffy argue that there are three main constructivist principles. First, understanding comes from interactions with our environment. Second, cognitive conflict stimulates learning. Third, knowledge evolves through social negotiation (1995). Other main beliefs of constructivism are that it, unlike instructivism, emphasizes learning and not teaching, it encourages learner individuality, it thinks of learning as a process, and it nurtures natural curiosity, to name a few. Constructivist learning experiences emphasis authentic tasks in a meaningful context, where these tasks are real-world learning situations or settings (Jonassen, 1994).
There are two main camps in constructivism, social constructivism and cognitive constructivism. Social constructivism is most often associated with Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky, and others, believed that the teacher plays an active role in learning as he/she helps the learner develop his/her mental ability through discovery. Social Constructivism holds that leaning is a social and collaborative activity that isn’t “taught,” but rather constructed by the learner.
Cognitive Constructivism, with its equally as famous Jean Piaget, holds that learning is achieved through various developmental stages that are built upon the previous stage. According to The learner constructs understanding through many stimuli or channels. The learner is advanced through assimilation, accommodation and equilibrium.
As natural as constructivism sounds, there are valid criticisms of the theory. One of the most prominent criticism is that constructivism subordinates the curriculum to the interests of the child. Finn and Ratvich argue that, The “child-centered” version of progressivism from which so much of today’s constructivism flows is hostile to standards, assessments and accountability. In the child-centered classroom, teachers are supposed to ”facilitate,” not teach. Teaching is scorned as didactic, almost authoritarian (1996).
They continue to question the validity of each child needing to “reinvent what has been painfully learned by humankind over the centuries (Finn & Ratvich, 1996). According to Cromer, (1997) constructivism emerges from post-modernism, which questions objectivity of scientific observations and truth of scientific knowledge, and he believes that constructivist doctrines arose among those academics most ignorant of science.
References
Cromer, Alan (1997). Connected knowledge: science, philosophy, and education. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dougiamas, Martin (1998). A journey into constructivism [WWW document]. Retrieved September 3, 2002 from http://dougimas.com/writing/constructivism.html.
Finn, Chester, E. & Ravitch, Diane (1996). Education Reform: A Report from the Educational Excellence Network to its Education Policy Committee and the American People [WWW document]. Retrieved September 25, 2002 from http://www.edexcellence.net/library/epciv.html.
Jonassen, D. (1994, April). Thinking technology. Educational Technology, 34(4), 34-37.
lindapg1.htm(2002) What is constructivism? [WWW document]. Retrieved September 3, 2002 from http://hagar.up.ac.za/catts/learner/lindavr/lindapg1.htm
Savery, J.R. & Duffy, T.M. (1995). Problem based learning: an instructional model and it constructivist framework. Educational Technology. 1995; 35(5), 31-7.