Constructivism

As a philosophy of learning, constructivism can be traced to the eighteenth century and the work of the philosopher Giambattista Vico, who maintained that humans can understand only what they have themselves constructed. A great many philosophers and educationalists have worked with these ideas, but the first major contemporaries to develop a clear idea of what constructivism consists in were Jean Piaget and John Dewey, to name but a few.

Within the constructivist paradigm, the accent is on the learner rather than the teacher. It is the learner who interacts with his or her environment and thus gains an understanding of its features and characteristics. The learner constructs his own conceptualisations and finds his own solutions to problems, mastering autonomy and independence.

If a student is able to perform in a problem solving situation, a meaningful learning should then occur because he has constructed an interpretation of how things work using pre-existing structures. This is the theory behind Constructivism. By creating a personal interpretation of external ideas and experiences, constructivism allows students the ability to understand how ideas can relate to each other and pre-existing knowledge.

The constructivist classroom presents the learner with opportunities for "autopoietic" learning with a view to help learners to build on prior knowledge and understand how to construct new knowledge from authentic experience - certainly a view in keeping with Rogers' experiential learning (Rogers, 1969, 1994). C. Rogers, one of the exponents of experiential learning - the tenets of which are inextricably related to, and congruent with, those of constructivism - made the distinction between cognitive learning, which he deemed meretricious, and experiential learning, which he considered significant. For him, the qualities of experiential learning include:

·                                 personal involvement;

·                                 learner-initiation;

·                                 evaluation by learner; and

·                                 pervasive effects on learner

(see the web document: http://www.educationau.edu.au/archives/cp/04f.htm)

Interestingly, contrasting this approach with the typical behaviourist classroom, where students are merely passive "receptacles" of information from the teacher and the textbook, is rather revealing. We will come to that later on in the study. At this juncture, it is important to briefly discuss the theories of John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Jerome Bruner that have certainly influenced our stance toward the nature of learning and, concomitantly, teaching. 

For John Dewey, knowledge emerges only from situations in which learners have to draw them out of meaningful experiences. Further, these situations have to be embedded in a social context, such as a classroom, where students can take part in manipulating materials and, thus, forming a community of learners who construct their knowledge together. Students cannot learn by means of rote memorisation; they can only learn by "directed living," whereby concrete activities are combined with theory. The obvious implication of Dewey's theory is that students must be engaged in meaningful activities that induce them to apply the concepts they are trying to learn.

Jean Piaget's constructivism is premised on his view of the psychological development of children. Within his theory, the basis of learning is discovery: 'To understand is to discover, or reconstruct by rediscovery, and such conditions must be complied with if in the future individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition" (Piaget, 1973). According to Piaget, children go through stages in which they accept ideas they may later discard as wrong. Understanding, therefore, is built up step by step through active participation and involvement. However, applying Piaget's theory is not so straightforward a task as it may sound.

(see http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/faculty/psparks/theorists/501const.htm)

According to Jerome Bruner, learning is a social process, whereby students construct new concepts based on current knowledge. The student selects information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, with the aim of integrating new experiences into his existing mental constructs. It is cognitive structures that provide meaning and organization to experiences and allow learners to transcend the boundaries of the information given. For him, learner independence, fostered through encouraging students to discover new principles of their own accord, lies at the heart of effective education. Moreover, curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that students can build upon what they have already learned. In short, the principles that permeate Bruner's theory are the following (see Bruner, 1973):

·                                 Instruction must be commensurate with the experiences that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness).

·                                 Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily understood by the student (spiral organization).

·                                 Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation (going beyond the information given).

Recapitulating the main principles of constructivism, we could say that it emphasises learning and not teaching, encourages learner autonomy and personal involvement in learning, looks to learners as incumbents of significant roles and as agents exercising will and purpose, fosters learners' natural curiosity, and also takes account of learners' affect, in terms of their beliefs, attitudes, and motivation. In addition, within constructivist theory, context is accorded significance, as it renders situations and events meaningful and relevant, and provides learners with the opportunity to construct new knowledge from authentic experience. After all, "learning is contextual: we do not learn isolated facts and theories in some abstract ethereal land of the mind separate from the rest of our lives: we learn in relationship to what else we know, what we believe, our prejudices and our fears. On reflection, it becomes clear that this point is actually a corollary of the idea that learning is active and social. We cannot divorce our learning from our lives"

(Hein, 1991, see www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/constructivistlearning.html).

What is more, by providing opportunities for independent thinking, constructivism allows students to take responsibility for their own learning, by framing questions and then analyzing them. Reaching beyond simple factual information, learners are induced to establish connections between ideas and thus to predict, justify, and defend their ideas.

REFERENCES
Bruner, J. (1973). Going Beyond the Information Given. New York: Norton.

Dewey, John. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan.

Dewey, John. (1966). Democracy and Education. New York: Free Press.

.Piaget, Jean. (1973). To Understand is to Invent. New York: Grossman. (http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/faculty/psparks/theorists/501const.htm)

Rogers, C.R. (1969). Freedom to Learn. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

Rogers, C.R. & Freiberg, H.J. (1994). Freedom to Learn (3rd Ed). Columbus, OH: Merrill/MacMillan (http://www.educationau.edu.au/archives/cp/04f.htm)