Constructing Meaning to Constructivism
Constructivism Defined
Constructivism is a philosophy, which ascribes that people learn by constructing knowledge and meaning based on their own
experience and understanding of the world around them.
To this end, active hands-on learning, exploration, and reasoning are preferred to text and memorization of isolated information.
Learning is constructed by building upon (connecting) what the learner knows and understands about his/her world.
Born out of Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development, and nutured by Vygotsky, the constructivist model places focus on the learner,
not the lesson. There is no knowledge independent of the meaning attributed to experience (constructed) by the learner, or community of learners.
Constructivism is not without criticism from both scientists and educators. Some claim that there is not enough empirical evidence
to support the theory, and there are others who believe that it is not an effective approach for all learners, particularly novices.
Constructivist teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expert learners." This gives them ever-broadening tools to keep learning. With a well-planned classroom environment, the students learn HOW TO LEARN.
You might look at it as a spiral. When they continuously reflect on their experiences, students find their ideas gaining in complexity and power, and they develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. One of the teacher's main roles becomes to encourage this learning and reflection process.
For example: 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. - Concept to Classroom http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html
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