“Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.” – Jean Piaget
The Constructivist educator’s point of view is that learning can be better achieved through direct experience of active learning in a very hands-on way, and then reflecting on that experience after. Through many exploratory experiences directly with people, objects, skills and other concepts, students are able to build and extend on their own existing knowledge. This viewpoint is based on Piaget’s theory with students have their own mental frameworks of how things might work, but when learning, these frameworks are challenged and they are forced to find equilibrium, before finally assimilating the new content.
It’s also important to add that according to Vygotsky’sZone of ProximalDevelopment, learners will be able to extend what they already know with help from others, such as a teacher or an experienced mentor. We can’t deny the power of social collaboration in constructivist learning, and any opportunity for applied group work and peer review is important to help scaffold on existing knowledge and further develop cognitive function.
Constructivism is the most commonly used approach in classrooms today and educators are aware of the strong benefits that are found with this type of active learning approach. Students are then encouraged to reflect and assess what they have learnt, and how it connects to what they already know, creating new connections to different skills, which later allows them to scaffold to more complex problems to solve. The educator’s role in the classroom will need to shift from being the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side”, with a stronger mentoring role to help facilitate and guide students’ learning.
We have also learnt about the benefits of social constructivist theories, whereby learning can be extended through collaboration with other students and sharing their work on online LMS’s (Learning Management Systems) or social learning or media networks for exposure, feedback and recognition. As well, if learning can occur in the most appropriate environment supported by the proper learning mentors and technologies, this situated type of learning would be more meaningful to the learner as they are experiencing something similar to what they might be doing in the real world.
The Constructivist 5E Instructional Model
This model was developed by the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS) and has been in use since the late 80's particularly in the area of science curriculum in schools. This model has been praised for its success in fostering student mastery of a topic and increasing problem solving and higher level cognitive reasoning. It's a useful model that can apply to many different areas of learning.
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It's helpful to understand the roles of the student and the teacher in each stage of the 5E model so you can understand how to better implement it successfully. NOTE: This table is referenced from the NittyGrittyScience.com website, view link below.
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Let’s look at some constructivist activities in the classroom as well as some real world applied constructivistexamples that have been utilized by students in the Constructivist group.
Playing Games – Playing games has a lot of positive qualities of learning and will help learners to understand strategy and game play in an exploratory manner. In this type of activity, it’s likely that students are playing games with each other, and thus have to also work on their social and communication skills in the process. Playing together would help students to better understand the dynamics of collaborative gameplay, and that they will gain more from this experience than possibly playing alone.
Role Playing – Similar to playing games, role playing uses a student’s imagination and language skills to help them think about being in someone else’s shoes. They need to have enough of an understanding of someone else’s perspective, culture, social references and societal position to better role play.
Hands-on Experiments & Simulations - Active hands-on learning is a big part of constructivism so it’s important to allow students to have an opportunity to explore and trying out activities and experiments after a concept has been shown. Students should see the cause and reaction themselves and form their own understanding of what they have observed. Talking it over and discussing the results in groups, and completing a report would pull all their learning together.
Sometimes, when it’s not possible to run a complicated experiment due to resource limitations, a computer simulation of the event on a computer or through video, could be used instead. The simulations can show students how a process works, when it’s demonstrated and broken down into smaller pieces as well as the interactions between the smaller pieces.
Interactive Examples – With so much new interactive learning technologies like augmented and virtual reality, this provides us with another way of engaging with the world around us. With VR, we are able to put on VR headsets that immerse us into a virtual world that we can then interact using the controllers in our hands (and maybe even other sensors attached around our body).
Collaborative Work – Constructivism can be enhanced through more learning in groups of students, allowing them to discuss and learn from each other through the process. It helps when students can problem solve together and form different meanings, which they are able to share and receive feedback.
In the classroom, this is one of the most useful activities to apply for small groups of students, as they will have to learn quickly to begin discussing solutions for project, but collectively work, research and share and apply their knowledge in a manner that requires active communication and problem solving among the members.
Reciprocal Teaching – Another useful constructivist activity builds upon the adage that teaching something will allow you to understand that topic better because you have to actively recall your learning for someone else. Incorporating short peer teaching sessions as a group activity would allow students to teach another group what they have learnt.
Problem Based Learning (PBL) – For more complex learning tasks, problem based learning can be employed to have students search for and collectively work towards possible answers or solutions. The problems should usually based on real-world scenarios, and students make use of what they have learnt in the course in an applied manner on the problem. Collaborative small groups work well for PBL, as students can focus their attention on the solutions through active learning. In real life, practicums or apprenticeships are where students can practice problem based learning, utilize their hands on skills and actively apply their knowledge in a situational environment.
Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) – Once again, with more complex learning problems or hypotheses, students can take the inquiry-based approach where they ask and answer their own questions, they build up their own foundation of learning, they make their own connections and conclusions over what they are investigating. This is a much more open format of learning, and less direct than problem-based learning. Students are encouraged to seek out knowledge they are interested in learning and share it within their collaborative small group for further discussion and feedback. In this type of learning activity, students are encouraged to take ownership of their ideas and how they pursue learning and demonstrating it to their class. Often science fair projects at school that are based around IBL, have students build their own creative projects and presentations around a topic of their choice.