Constructivism Theory

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism

Constructivism is a learning theory which asserts that children should be taught in a way that allows them to construct their own understandings about a subject. The purpose of the teacher is not to cover material but to help the child "uncover" the facts and ideas in a subject area.

Constructivism is a theory of learning and knowledge that stresses the mental models that people establish for an activity or body of knowledge. Learning is the process of constructing a MentalModel of a domain, and discarding and reconstructing it when it proves inadequate (see WittgensteinsLadder).

A constructivist educational environment stresses LearningByDoing as the best means of constructing sound mental models. (The theory being that LearningByRote? constructs a very fragile model that is not really internalized by the learner (that is, connected in their mind to their own experiences).)

Constructivism was formulated by JeanPiaget? and had a heavy influence on SeymourPapert and the development of LogoLanguage.

One story (I think it comes from the book TurtlesTermitesAndTrafficJams)... a young child was programming a LogoTurtleRobot. He had a program that would move the turtle forward and back based on an input number. Enter 1, the turtle moves forward, enter 2 the turtle moves forward and back, enter 3 the turtle moves forward, back, forward again, and so on. The child noticed that if he entered odd numbers, the turtle ended up in a new position, but even he entered an even number it ended up where it started. Until this insight the concept of "even" and "odd" was just a meaningless, abstract concept without any relation to the child's experiences.

Not unlike the SocraticMethod.

I'm not convinced of this... though maybe that's just because in Plato's works Socrates so clearly has a lesson to impart directly, and the question-answer format is so thin ("Is it not so that...", "Yes, surely that is so Socrates!"). Constructivism implies much more self-directed learning to me.

See NeverExplain, LearnFromExperience

CategoryEducation