Epistemology: Constructivism

Constructivism

• Overview:  Constructivism is based heavily on the work of Piaget, Bruner, Papert, and Jonassen. It is based on the premise that we all construct our own perspective of the world, based on individual experiences and schema. Learning occurs because personal knowledge is constructed by an active and self-regulated learner who resolves conflicts between ideas and reflects on theoretical explanations. 
  
  In the Constructivist theory the emphasis is placed on the learner or the student rather than the teacher or the instructor. Classroom environment, expectations, selection and creation of pedagogy, and assessment are guided by tacit or known teacher assumptions. 
  
  Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness). In his more recent work, Bruner (1986, 1990) has expanded his theoretical framework to encompass the social and cultural aspects of learning. 
  
  This example is taken from Bruner: The concept of prime numbers appears to be more readily grasped when the child, through construction, discovers that certain handfuls of beans cannot be laid out in completed rows and columns. Such quantities have either to be laid out in a single file or in an incomplete row-column design in which there is always one extra or one too few to fill the pattern. It is easy for the child to go from this step to the recognition that a multiple table, so called, is a record sheet of quantities in completed multiple rows and columns.
  
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