Constructivism

Constructivism is a learning theory based on the notion that students actively construct knowledge. This view of learning calls for a dramatic lessening of reliance on a didactic, textbook-based, ‘transmission’ of knowledge approach to teaching and learning in the classroom. It also challenges popular views about the nature of knowledge. The fact that constructivism rejects commonplace views about knowledge, however, does not mean that it embraces a relativistic or anything-goes approach. What is also clear is that constructivists who endorse views that oppose the mainstream view—who argue, in other words, that worthwhile knowledge tends to be complex rather than simple, open to question rather than certain—are more likely than acknowledged to promote disagreement among experts about how best to conceptualize knowledge.

Research shows that these core beliefs about knowledge relate to teacher practice, albeit imperfectly, because of the pressures teachers face to cover the curriculum and improve standardized test performance. Another factor that affects teachers as they seek to convert theories of knowledge into classroom practice is that constructivists who argue for a more open approach to teaching and learning disagree about the particulars of the openness. Some constructivists, for example, maintain that the curriculum should be problem based; others argue that it should be based on the students' interest and level of development. The same disagreement arises about the nature of the pedagogy. Some constructivists believe that it should be peer centered; others maintain that it should be individually oriented. A similar disagreement exists with regard to assessment. Some argue that it should be performance based, which is to say, out in the open and judged against a common standard; others believe [Page 183]that it should be based primarily on each child's progress, best assessed using individual portfolios.

These disagreements about practice among constructivists mirror other, sometimes subtle, theoretical disagreements between different ‘camps’ of constructivists. The disagreements turn largely on the question of what kind of knowledge is most important and how that knowledge is best acquired. Although this may be an oversimplification, one camp of constructivists, the social constructivists, want to move knowledge out of the head and into the open. In this view, knowledge is a community and not an individual possession, a notion that has implications for how members of this constructivist camp define the nature of knowledge. For one, if it really is between people, it has to be overt or observable, which means that knowledge can take two possible forms: It can consist of strategies or routines, or, favored by those social constructivists who consider themselves ‘postmodern,’ knowledge can be defined as language.

The two groups of social constructivists, because they define knowledge in two different ways, also hold up different models of learning as being ideal for the classroom. The group that focuses on strategies, strongly influenced by a Russian psychologist named Lev Vygotsky, advances apprenticeship learning as the ideal. The intellectual version of apprenticeship learning can involve a relatively simple strategy such as a mnemonic code (e.g., ‘one-bun, two-shoe …’), which enables one to visualize an ordered set of objects; or it can involve a complex strategy that encompasses ‘metacognition’ (e.g., planning, monitoring, checking, and revising). Like a veteran tailor, the teacher using this approach is expected to first model the practice, gradually turning over control to the novice as he or she becomes more skillful in implementing the practice.

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