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The short video below highlights the potential shortcomings of group work in information settings. Because collaboration is such an important part of Constructivism, I thought it would be helpful to highlight groupthink and how it may adversely effect the implementation of the theory.

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Student-Centered Education and Constructivism:  Challenges, Concerns, and Clarity for Teachers

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Student-Centered Education and Constructivism:  Challenges, Concerns, and Clarity for Teachers

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From the abstract: "This paper underscores how educators in the twenty-first century are increasingly compelled to accept constructivist pedagogy. It further reflects on challenges this poses for learning, concerns regarding constructivism as the dominant pedagogical tool, and clarity with respect to the consideration of alternative approaches while offering specific reflections for classroom teachers". I appreciate that this peer-reviewed paper looks at the downsides of constructivism, and I thought it was important to include here as a way of balancing the positive aspects.

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Booth devoted an entire chapter to Design's influence on Instructional Literacy. IDEO is arguably one of the most prominent organizations focused on innovation and enhancing the user's experience. This article introduces us to the importance of struggle in a Constructivist approach to learning and problem solving. We are asking our patrons and students to do really hard, emotional work. I really appreciate this reminder.

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It's a Wednesday morning in the IDEO San Francisco studio. Bright sunshine reflects off the Bay and through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But in the project space, the mood is darker.

The team is on week five of their project. They've been conducting tons of human-centered interviews and broad design research, and they're writing and re-writing what inspired and challenged them. The first few weeks were an exciting whirlwind as they generated hundreds of half-thoughts: vignettes, questions, and future possibilities to throw into what they called the "idea parking lot."

But now, the team has tears in their eyes. They are frustrated and exhausted. Post-It notes cover the walls in disordered clusters, and many lie crumbled on the ground. A stack of flip-chart pages on the floor contain sketched Venn diagrams and pyramids, remnants of attempts to wrangle the insights into a framework. The team is on edge, pointing to the clock, aware of every minute left before the scheduled call with the client. They're not quite sure what they have learned, and they don't yet know what ideas they would recommend. And they're looking to me for answers.

Feel familiar? This is the phase of design that gets talked about least: synthesis. It is where designers shift from the openness of "beginner's mind" to attempting to make sense of it all. Synthesis is when things feel most unclear and unsettled, where the pressure to make new meaning from our learnings feels most oppressive.

The team knows it's not enough to categorize observations into obvious themes. To innovate, they need to put the pieces together in new and insightful ways. They need to find a fresh mental model. And they have to imagine how this model yields a product, service, experience, or system that reframes the world in a new and better reality.

As a leader, there are few things as challenging as seeing people on your team struggle. It feels easy to offer a fast answer or a framework from your previous experience, hoping to alleviate their anxiety. But, in the end, I knew that my quick conclusions were not going to get the team creating groundbreaking ideas, and it also wouldn't help them develop their creative muscles.

I remembered what my best teachers have done to help me through this onerous step: acknowledge how hard this particular part of the work really is, ask them great questions, and show them my confidence that they will find their way through.

In other words, I had to lead like a Constructivist.

Constructivism teaches us how we learn

One of the most difficult courses I took in graduate school focused on theories of learning. My classmates and I struggled to understand heavy academic texts, but every week we were asked to create learning experiences for each other based on these theories. Despite complaining throughout the quarter, I now realize how much graduate school taught me.

In particular, I find myself constantly referencing the Constructivist theory of learning. Constructivism, it turns out, has a surprising relationship to the design process.

Knowledge doesn't exist in the world, and you don't acquire it: Knowledge exists in our own minds, through our own active construction.

Back in the 1950s, the psychologist Jean Piaget observed children to understand how people learn. He concluded that, counter to popular belief, knowledge doesn't exist in the world, and you don't acquire it: Knowledge exists in our own minds, through our own active construction. No one really teaches you anything, Piaget claimed. Instead, he believed that we are natural learners, constantly processing the world in order to create our own understanding.

It's easiest to think about this theory by considering how young children learn language. Let's say you are driving through the countryside and see a cow. You point to it and say "cow." As the child looks, she forms a picture in her head, something like, "Ok, a 'cow' is big animal with four legs, and is black and white." Later, you point to another cow, this time one that is brown and small. What's happening in the child's mind? Her thought process might sound like, "Wait! That doesn't match what I understand about a cow. I thought a cow was bigger. This has four legs, but it's not black and white."

In that moment, the child has a choice. She can ignore you, and her mental model will stay fixed. Or, she can reconsider her understanding of a cow. Maybe cows are also brown. Maybe cows can be big and small. Piaget chose the perfect word to describe this state of misalignment: Disequilibrium.

Disequilibrium happens when you begin to see things in the world that don't make sense to you. The things you thought you knew-the things that helped you feel stable and clear-are now in question. And, woof. This state is hard. We crave equilibrium.

To understand more, I spoke with Beth Hennessey, professor of psychology at Wellesley College. Beth is a former elementary-school teacher and now studies motivation and creativity across cultures. "Whether someone is sitting down to write a scholarly paper or trying to solve a problem in the workplace, Piaget would tell us that the state of disequilibrium is a really uncomfortable place to be," she says. "But we don't give up, because we don't like being in that stage of confusion. It's hardwired in us to create new frameworks to accommodate the information we get about the world."

In order to bring yourself back to a calm state of knowing, you have to generate a new "a-ha" inside your mind that reframes your old information with the new information. A mental model that, through the force of your imagination and intelligence, connects those dissonant dots into new meaning.

Learning is the process of using our innate abilities to construct-or create-new understandings of the world.

Learning isn't about the consumption of new information. Learning is the process of using our innate abilities to construct-or create-new understandings of the world. Learning, by its very nature, is a creative act.

Our natural process of learning is well aligned with the creative process. Design research methods-finding inspiration from diverse sources, meeting people at the extremes, finding empathy for others' experiences-provide structured activities to purposefully shake up your understanding of a problem and put you straight into that state of disequilibrium. The approach helps you seek information that surprises you, rather than reaffirming what you already know.

We crave equilibrium. So when all this input shakes up our understanding of the world, the only way through it is to create new meaning. Synthesis is our natural creative process, and once you start to put those pieces back together into new frameworks of understanding, that's when the new ideas start to flow.

Learning to love disequilibrium

While it is obvious that a child naturally refines and recreates their mental models of the world, we often ignore the fact that we go through this same process as adults. It is even more challenging for us, however, as our mental models have become entrenched and intertwined with our identity. It's no longer just about understanding the word "cow": Now it's about designing whole new offerings, experiences, and organizations that go against the convictions that have solidified in our minds. Putting ourselves into that vulnerable state of disequilibrium becomes riskier over time, especially if we are high-status leaders.

As I've dug back into the Constructivist learning research, I've been thinking about what I am taking away from this investigation.

To begin, it takes a lot of effort to create new mental models, but we leave little room for the cognitive load of innovation, what with our endless news feeds and unrelenting inboxes. For example, while I constantly think about the time required to tick off my to-do list, I rarely evaluate how much emotional energy is required to take my work to new creative heights. I realized that I am misspending my energy. How might I more clearly recognize the areas where I'm committed to developing new solutions? How might I make space for myself to be in the challenging state of disequilibrium? How might I pace ambitions so that I'm not disrupted by too many things at once?

Hennessey doesn't offer much comfort here. "Being in that state of disequilibrium is hard work," she says. "If a lot of different aspects of your life are in a messy place, you're going to struggle, because so much energy is going to need to be expended. Getting out of this state is not just cognitive demand, it's also affective: It's emotional."

Recently, I found myself sitting in an important meeting, feeling frustrated and wanting to point out what was wrong. I was starting to make fast decisions and putting pressure on my team to do the same.

Somehow, just knowing that you're in that state of disequilibrium makes it feel less stressful.

Then I realized that I was in disequilibrium. I was feeling stretched, insecure, and like my mental models were insufficient. I was pushing for things to make sense. So instead of getting angry, I admitted my feelings of discomfort, and asked my colleagues to help me find my way through the ambiguity. And we did.

Somehow, just knowing that you're in that state of disequilibrium makes it feel less stressful. We can become conscious of the signals of our mental states, and we can turn them into positive feedback. For me, the signs seem to be frustration and impatience. Now, when I feel those bubbling up, I smile and realize I'm just in that pesky state of disequilibrium, and that I can be patient with myself and realize that a new state of knowing is on the other side.

Permission to struggle

It's no wonder that my design team was in tears as they worked through the synthesis stage of their project. Their minds, hearts, and emotions were all engaged in the difficult question they were answering, and they were a vulnerable mess. They felt the pressure of time, the pressure of the cause, and the pressure of not knowing the answers yet.

As a leader, I was challenged, too. I wanted to find quick answers, be ready for the client, cut through the confusion, and get on with it. But if I had filled in the blanks for the team or pushed them to get it done fast, we wouldn't have gotten to the depth of the design solutions that the team found over the following days and weeks. In fact, toward the end of this effort, our client who had been working in the field for 25 years said, "I've been working with these guys for my entire career, and I want to thank you for helping me understand them better."

So how does this Constructivist learning theory help us support creative teams? What if, as creative leaders, we saw ourselves as great Constructivist teachers instead of orienting around our knowledge and expertise? How would Piaget's theories change our behavior?

As good Constructivist teachers, we need to give people the permission to struggle. As Hennessy says, "Whether you're a teacher or a manager, you need to make it explicit that you understand that innovation and creativity is hard work, that people will hit that state of disequilibrium, that people will hit dead ends, and that that is valued. The best thing a teacher can do is model their own struggles."

Just like classroom teachers, leaders face pressure to accomplish a set of outcomes within a particular timeframe and often, unintentionally, send signals to their teams that their time messing about in search of a new mental model isn't valid. This urgency may trigger teams to cut short those deeper, more difficult stages of creative work, leading to shallow solutions.

IDEO's "Mood Meter."

Years ago, IDEO developed a tool called the "Mood Meter" to help prepare newcomers for design projects. It's a graphic that shows the journey of the design process with various levels of joy and anxiety charted on it. The idea was to provide reassurance that, although there would be some struggles, the project would end happily.

I was personally not a fan of this tool because I found it unfair to tell people how they would feel before they actually felt it. And yet, it was always right. During the research phase, people were elated, and during prototyping, too. Making stuff was always fun. But during synthesis, the phase devoted to making meaning, that line on the graph would drop to its lowest point. And that's when you need time to sit in the struggle.

There is a belief out there that designers are constantly optimistic and confident, but that hasn't been my experience. Creativity isn't all about fun. Acknowledging that allows us to design better environments and processes that support the profound vulnerability necessary to develop creative solutions.

After more than a decade of leading creative teams, I believe that some of the best work comes from some of these hardest times. Confusion, self-doubt, existential searching, getting lost, and then finding your way out of that state of disequilibrium-these are the essential experiences for the emergence of creativity.

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The uncomfortable secret to creative success is "disequilibrium"

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It's a Wednesday morning in the IDEO San Francisco studio. Bright sunshine reflects off the Bay and through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But in the project space, the mood is darker. The team is on week five of their project. They've been conducting tons of human-centered interviews and broad design research, and they're writing and re-writing what inspired and challenged them.

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Constructivism positions non-white learners in learning situations that require them to rely on on their individual schema to navigate Middle class ideals, which are often incongruent with their lived experiences.  Educational Researcher and critic, Lisa Delpit provides examples to make Constructivism more culturally revelant.

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I Heard People don't Call these Power Points Anymore and Now I Feel Old

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I Heard People don't Call these Power Points Anymore and Now I Feel Old

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I was looking through other Power Points on constructivism, and came across this one. While this one may not be the most visually appealing, it is brief and to the point while still being able to give a great overview on many major bullet points of constructivism. I then realized that

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The Constructivist Approach to teaching and learning

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The Constructivist Approach to teaching and learning. Cat Allen Instructional Technologies in Education. What is Constructivism?. A view of learning based on the belief that knowledge isn't a thing that can simply be given by the teacher at the front of the room to students in their desks.

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What hasn't the Simpsons touched on? These two clips (poorly) stitched together are able to express a fictionalized version of constructivist classrooms in a different way. It seems like there is a little bias against constructivism, but that is because they (constructivist stereotypes) are being turned up to the max to make a comedic point. They do show one of the cons of constructivism- the fact that constructivism is typically reserved for privileged children.

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Each author below has slightly different ideas on constructivist theory. These differences can make it easier to compare and contrast each scholarly theory and see what can be used in practice.

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"We are not the future.  We are right now."

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"We are not the future.  We are right now."

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This Ted Talk shows the power of handing over the reigns in your classroom to students. Mrs. Wright had just returned from a conference where she learned about constructivism, and on a whim, she asked her students how they would design their school and what they wanted to learn. She let them tackle a project which had ignited a passion in them, and they led the way with every step, creating their own learning because they were highly motivated.

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The power of student-driven learning: Shelley Wright at TEDxWestVancouverED

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Constructivism Theory and Use in the Classroom

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Constructivism Theory and Use in the Classroom

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This 2019 article by Saul McLeod explains constructivism, gives the principles, the three main types, explained, and goes in to the constructivist approaches to teaching. I also appreciate that at the end of the article, McLeod lists both the strengths and the weaknesses of the theory for a more balanced overview.

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Constructivism Learning Theory & Philosophy of Education

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Constructivism is a learning theory that emphasizes the active role of learners in building their own understanding. Rather than passively receiving information, learners reflect on their experiences, create mental representations, and incorporate new knowledge into

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This concept map gives a brief overview of Constructivist theories in a nutshell.

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This short video with no words shows a multitude of photos taken of students of all ages engaging in tasks that are constructivist in nature. The students are inside and outside, they are working with materials, talking with each other, writing and using technology. The engagement factor seems high in all of the photos presented. If you are unsure what it looks like, this is it.

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This site outlines how learning using constructivism would work in a classroom. It breaks down parts of the theory (constructed, active, reflective, collaborative, inquiry-based, and evolving) and gives feasible examples for each section. There are even reflective questions along the way to make you think as you explore this theory.

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What is constructivism?
How does this theory differ from traditional ideas about teaching and learning?
What does constructivism have to do with my classroom?
Expert Interview
What is the history of constructivism, and how has it changed over time?
What are some critical perspectives?
What are the benefits of constructivism?

What does constructivism have to do with my classroom?

As is the case with many of the current/popular paradigms, you're probably already using the constructivist approach to some degree. Constructivist teachers pose questions and problems, then guide students to help them find their own answers. They use many techniques in the teaching process. For example, they may:

prompt students to formulate their own questions (inquiry)

allow multiple interpretations and expressions of learning (multiple intelligences)

encourage group work and the use of peers as resources (collaborative learning)

More information on the above processes is covered in other workshops in this series. For now, it's important to realize that the constructivist approach borrows from many other practices in the pursuit of its primary goal: helping students learn HOW TO LEARN.

In a constructivist classroom, learning is . . .

Students are not blank slates upon which knowledge is etched. They come to learning situations with already formulated knowledge, ideas, and understandings. This previous knowledge is the raw material for the new knowledge they will create.

Example: An elementary school teacher presents a class problem to measure the length of the "Mayflower." Rather than starting the problem by introducing the ruler, the teacher allows students to reflect and to construct their own methods of measurement. One student offers the knowledge that a doctor said he is four feet tall. Another says she knows horses are measured in "hands." The students discuss these and other methods they have heard about, and decide on one to apply to the problem.

The student is the person who creates new understanding for him/herself. The teacher coaches, moderates, suggests, but allows the students room to experiment, ask questions, try things that don't work. Learning activities require the students' full participation (like hands-on experiments). An important part of the learning process is that students reflect on, and talk about, their activities. Students also help set their own goals and means of assessment.

Examples: A middle-school language arts teacher sets aside time each week for a writing lab. The emphasis is on content and getting ideas down rather than memorizing grammatical rules, though one of the teacher's concerns is the ability of his students to express themselves well through written language. The teacher provides opportunities for students to examine the finished and earlier drafts of various authors. He allows students to select and create projects within the general requirement of building a portfolio 1. Students serve as peer editors who value originality and uniqueness rather than the best way to fulfill an assignment.

1.

In a history class, asking students to read and think about different versions of and perspectives on "history" can lead to interesting discussions. Is history as taught in textbooks accurate? Are there different versions of the same history? Whose version of history is most accurate? How do we know? From there, students can make their own judgments.

Students control their own learning process, and they lead the way by reflecting on their experiences. This process makes them experts of their own learning. The teacher helps create situations where the students feel safe questioning and reflecting on their own processes, either privately or in group discussions. The teacher should also create activities that lead the student to reflect on his or her prior knowledge and experiences. Talking about what was learned and how it was learned is really important.

Example: Students keep journals in a writing class where they record how they felt about the class projects, the visual and verbal reactions of others to the project, and how they felt their own writing had changed. Periodically the teacher reads these journals and holds a conference with the student where the two assess (1) what new knowledge the student has created, (2) how the student learns best, and (3) the learning environment and the teacher's role in it.

The constructivist classroom relies heavily on collaboration among students. There are many reasons why collaboration contributes to learning. The main reason it is used so much in constructivism is that students learn about learning not only from themselves, but also from their peers. When students review and reflect on their learning processes together, they can pick up strategies and methods from one another.

Example: In the course of studying ancient civilizations, students undertake an archaeological dig. This may be something constructed in a large sandbox, or, as in the Dalton School's "Archaeotype" software simulation, on a computer. As the students find different objects, the teacher introduces classifying techniques. The students are encouraged to (1) set up a group museum by developing criteria and choosing which objects should belong, and (2) collaborate with other students who worked in different quadrants of the dig. Each group is then asked to develop theories about the civilizations that inhabited the area.

The main activity in a constructivist classroom is solving problems. Students use inquiry methods to ask questions, investigate a topic, and use a variety of resources to find solutions and answers. As students explore the topic, they draw conclusions, and, as exploration continues, they revisit those conclusions. Exploration of questions leads to more questions. (See the CONCEPT TO CLASSROOM workshop Inquiry-based Learning)

Example: Sixth graders figuring out how to purify water investigate solutions ranging from coffee-filter paper, to a stove-top distillation apparatus, to piles of charcoal, to an abstract mathematical solution based on the size of a water molecule. Depending upon students' responses, the teacher encourages abstract as well as concrete, poetic as well as practical, creations of new knowledge.

Students have ideas that they may later see were invalid, incorrect, or insufficient to explain new experiences. These ideas are temporary steps in the integration of knowledge. For instance, a child may believe that all trees lose their leaves in the fall, until she visits an evergreen forest. Constructivist teaching takes into account students' current conceptions and builds from there.

What happens when a student gets a new piece of information? The constructivist model says that the student compares the information to the knowledge and understanding he/she already has, and one of three things can occur:

The new information matches up with his previous knowledge pretty well (it's consonant with the previous knowledge), so the student adds it to his understanding. It may take some work, but it's just a matter of finding the right fit, as with a puzzle piece.

The information doesn't match previous knowledge (it's dissonant). The student has to change her previous understanding to find a fit for the information. This can be harder work.

The information doesn't match previous knowledge, and it is ignored. Rejected bits of information may just not be absorbed by the student. Or they may float around, waiting for the day when the student's understanding has developed and permits a fit.

Example: An elementary teacher believes her students are ready to study gravity. She creates an environment of discovery with objects of varying kinds. Students explore the differences in weight among similarly sized blocks of Styrofoam, wood, and lead. Some students hold the notion that heavier objects fall faster than light ones. The teacher provides materials (stories, posters, and videos) about Galileo, Newton, etc. She leads a discussion on theories about falling. The students then replicate Galileo's experiment by dropping objects of different weights and measuring how fast they fall. They see that objects of different weights actually usually fall at the same speed, although surface area and aerodynamic properties can affect the rate of fall.

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Thirteen | Thirteen Ed Online | thirteencelebration.org

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Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning

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What is constructivism? How does this theory differ from traditional ideas about teaching and learning? What does constructivism have to do with my classroom? Expert Interview What is the history of constructivism, and how has it changed over time? What are some critical perspectives? What are the benefits of constructivism?

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A short clip, but it really does make the understanding more simplistic. I especially like how he compares other theories (without naming them) - using building blocks vs being molded like clay or programmed like a robot. (I feel like he could have gone on a few seconds longer, it does feel like it cuts off.)

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I felt like this visual did a nice job of explaining the theory in more common terms, highlighting that learners use previous experience to actively build knowledge. (And we get to see Piaget & Dewey.)

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The Problem with Constructivist Teaching Methods

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The Problem with Constructivist Teaching Methods

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The author, Kevin Butler in Aero magazine, provides the reader with a theory that constructivist teaching methods are ineffective. He is in favor of direct instruction.

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Colleges of education are responsible for training teachers. However, most colleges of education in the US are guided by ideology, rather than by research. Instead of helping prospective educators learn how to teach, colleges of education tend to push a particular perspective on teaching: teaching methods that are aligned with this perspective are advocated, and teaching methods in opposition to it are rejected-even if they are more effective at furthering students' academic achievement, self-esteem and critical thinking skills.

According to an article by professor Douglas Carnine of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, education professors in the United States overwhelmingly tend to advocate constructivist teaching methods. These include discovery-based learning, inquiry-based learning and project-based learning. These teaching methods require the teacher to avoid directly instructing her students: instead, she must simply put them in an information-rich environment, in which they are to discover key information on their own. Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker describes such methods (specifically with regard to mathematics education) in his book How the Mind Works:

The ascendant philosophy of mathematical education in the United States is constructivism, a mixture of Piaget's psychology with counterculture and postmodernist ideology. Children must actively construct mathematical knowledge for themselves in a social enterprise driven by disagreements about the meanings of concepts. The teacher provides the materials and the social milieu but does not lecture or guide the discussion.

However, there are serious issues with such approaches to teaching-they are highly ineffective at promoting academic achievement. This has been repeatedly confirmed by empirical research over the past several decades, according to an article in the journal Educational Psychologist. Revered educational researcher Jeanne Chall arrives at the same conclusion in her book The Academic Achievement Challenge. In fact, various different fields related to education-such as cognitive psychology and process-product studies - have arrived at this conclusion, according to Professors Barak Rosenshine and E. D. Hirsch: this consensus from several fields of study is a very strong indication that the findings are valid. Additionally, constructivist teaching methods have been shown to be much less effective than direct instruction methods for promoting critical thinking skills and self-esteem, according to a book by Professors Siegfried Engelmann and Gary Adams. Even so, such ineffective teaching strategies have remained quite popular all the way up to the present.

Professor Richard Mayer, in an article for American Psychologist, notes that constructivist teaching methods have consistently re-appeared under different names throughout the past several decades. Every time one of these teaching methods is shown to be ineffective by empirical research, it reappears under a different label. The educational establishment clearly refuses to give up on constructivist teaching. Scholars such as Charles Sykes, E. D. Hirsch, Martin Kozloff and Siegfried Engelmann attribute this support of constructivism to the ideological influence of colleges of education. Professor J. E. Stone defines this ideology as developmentalism-educators wholeheartedly support any teaching strategy that allows children to develop naturally, while any teaching method that involves an interference with natural development is seen as harmful. This ideology ignores the well-established psychological literature indicating that children have inherently violent and dangerous tendencies. As an article in Science points out: "Babies do not kill each other, because we do not give them access to knives and guns ... The question ... we've been trying to answer for the past 30 years is how do children learn to aggress ... [T]hat's the wrong question. The right question is how do they learn not to aggress." One goal of education, therefore, should be to develop children's control of their negative tendencies and to further their positive traits.

Moreover, constructivist teaching methods tend to widen the achievement gap between students of color and white students, and between high- and low-income students, according to an article in American Educator. Even so, most colleges of education claim to support social justice. In other words, despite the fact that colleges of education purportedly support social justice (as noted by scholars Charles Sykes, E. D. Hirsch, Rita Kramer and Siegfried Engelmann), the teaching methods they promote are harmful to at-risk students (students of color and low-income students). This is, to say the least, a baffling contradiction.

What is most concerning is that these dangerous teaching methods, strategies and dispositions are enforced upon and therefore adopted by teachers-most students who go through a teacher education program in university will undoubtedly be indoctrinated into the use of such methods. This leads to teachers' providing a highly inadequate education to their students, which-in the long term-leads to academic failure, and ultimately, failure in life. Academic achievement is highly correlated with scores on standardized tests and, although standardized tests (such as the ACT and SAT) are very frequently criticized, they are strongly correlated with IQ scores, and IQ scores are strongly correlated with job performance, occupational level, social status and income, and likelihood of engaging in crime. Effective teaching methods can ensure that students will succeed both academically and in life.

Constructivist teaching methods are highly ineffective: in fact, they compromise the overall life success of students. Therefore, the use of such methods is, quite simply, immoral. Nevertheless, the use of those teaching methods is extremely prevalent, and this use is promoted by the ideological bias of colleges of education. In order to promote equality, value and the development of knowledge in American schools, is it necessary to fight against the ideological indoctrination common in the education departments of American universities.

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Kevin Butler is an undergraduate student at Illinois Wesleyan University. He is majoring in Hispanic Studies and Secondary Education.

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The Problem with Constructivist Teaching Methods - Areo

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Colleges of education are responsible for training teachers. However, most colleges of education in the US are guided by ideology, rather than by research. Instead of helping prospective educators learn how to teach, colleges of education tend to push a particular perspective on teaching: teaching methods that are aligned with this perspective are advocated, and...

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Constructivism - Creating Experiences that Facilitate the Construction of Knowledge

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Constructivism - Creating Experiences that Facilitate the Construction of Knowledge

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What I found most interesting in this article by the Center for Educational Innovation at the University of Buffalo was the chart that demonstrates what a traditional classroom looks like versus a class that uses constructivism.

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The Advantages and Disadvantages of Constructivism in the Classroom

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The Advantages and Disadvantages of Constructivism in the Classroom

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In this article by Dr. Patrick Gleeson, pros and cons of Constructivism are shared.  It is pointed out that novel materials and methods are used as a way to capture the attention of students and engage them.  It is also shared that students who have  been a part of Constructivism may be unprepared for the rigors of lecture  based methods which are common to higher education.  I wonder how we can better bridge that gap?  Or, do our higher education institutions need to change their ways? Dawn

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The Classroom | Empowering Students in Their College Journey

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Constructivism theorizes that we construct our reality through experience and by reflection on that experience. Constructivism in the classroom generally emphasizes active student participation in the learning process through experiment, problem solving and discussion. The teacher works to understand the students' current state of knowledge and belief, then acts as a guide, ensuring that students address the essential issues and achieve reasonable intellectual outcomes.

Constructivism Promotes Engagement

One of the benefits of constructivism in the classroom is that it creates an active, engaging environment for children. Instead of being passive listeners, children, through discussion and collaboration, engage in active thinking and understanding and learn to teach themselves. Students enjoy this approach. Research shows that students learn better and faster when they work actively in problem solving rather than through rote memorization; retention rates also show improvement.

Learning to Learn

As students in a constructivist classroom work out their own solutions to the problems presented, they are not just learning specific materials; they are learning how to learn. This learning model can be an advantage in other classrooms and in life. Constructivist-educated students are prepared to navigate in the real world, where they must collaborate with others, negotiate their views and present ideas in ways that inspire others to accept them.

A Disadvantage of Constructivism in the Classroom

The application of constructivist theory to classroom models has generally been successful. However, as educational psychologist David Palmer has noted, constructivist-based teaching encourages the introduction of discrepant and novel materials and methods as a way of capturing students' attention and motivating them to engage. Unless the teacher remains disciplined in the use of such materials, the classroom experience can devolve into entertainment. Students exposed to this kind of teaching may be unprepared for the rigors -- and occasional boredom -- of the lecture-based teaching methods common in higher education.

Constructivism in the Age of Technology

In a long and thoughtful article on the uses of constructivism in the classroom, educator George Hein notes that constructivism effectively asks the student to construct a reality from materials she assembles herself. From the constructivist perspective, knowledge is dependent on the meaning attributed to experience by the learner. Consequently, constructivist approaches may be less applicable to teaching subjects where there is a heavy load of data-related information to be grasped -- subjects such as computer coding or introductory biology. In that environment, teachers may be tempted to short-circuit student discussion and self-discovery. When that happens, student motivation may not remain high, and one of the theoretical advantages of constructivist teaching disappears.

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The Advantages & Disadvantages of Constructivism in the Classroom

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Constructivism theorizes that we construct our reality through experience and by reflection on that experience. Constructivism in the classroom generally emphasizes active student participation in the learning process through experiment, problem solving and discussion. The teacher works to understand the students' ...

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This short Prezi identifies constructivism as students gaining insight when knowledge is constructed by experiences working in a collaborative environment. The instructor uses a combination of teaching and discovery opportunities and is essentially a "guide on the side." Collaborative and Inquiry sites are also provided. Dawn

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There are a number of theories concerning how people learn. Constructivism is just one. This looks at what Constructivism is and how we can use technologies with it.

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In the article it is discussed how constructivism and technology are closely linked.  In Makerspaces, students design, plan, and create a final product using hands-on learning tools such as 3D printers, and computers.  Constructivism is essentially a student centered, hands on learning strategy.  Students working collaboratively also lends itself well to genius hour which is project based as well as  hour of code.
When I worked in a Makerspace lab, I was introduced to a site called Instructables. You can get lost for hours on this site and students used it regularly to refine their final product/project.  Dawn

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I liked this visual which identifies students as in charge of their learning as they "construct" meaning from experiences in the world around them while interacting with others.  Dawn

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Michelle Thompson talks about how she first experienced constructivism and how it transformed her education beliefs. She provides the history behind this theory, defines it and tells us how it works.

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Education Reimagined Through Constructivism | Michelle Thompson | TEDxBethanyGlobalUniversity