Constructivist Approach to learning.

Main Page

Teacher's Guide

What is constructivism? Its states that the learner individually discovers and transforms complex information, checks out new information with olds rules and revises them to benefit learning.

• constructivist knowing assumes the active and proactive nature of all perception, learning, and knowledge...." (Mahoney, 1991)
• prior knowledge and experience is the springboard for useful, personal knowledge construction....
• constructivist learning experiences and appropriate classroom practices include reflective thinking and productivity; authentic activities, including student collaboration and consideration of multiple perspectives, and student access to content area experts who can model domain-specific skills...." (Grabe/Grabe, 1998)
• constructivist-oriented teachers mediate between student prior, knowledge and their lived worlds, creating learning environments that will help them develop increasingly complex understandings and skills.

  Some of the major theorist of Constructivism are
  Jerome Bruner

  More on Bruner

  
  Jean Piaget

  More on Piaget

  
  John Dewey
  Lev Vygotsky
  Jerome Bruner
  David Ausubel

  A major theme in the theoretical framework of Bruner is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to "go beyond the information given".

  Some great sites on Constructivism!

  UCDENVER

  The Practice Implications of Constructivism

  Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

  Constructivism in practice

  Constructivism: Background Knowledge

  Last Modified 12-13-99