-  a method of inquiry-based instruction

- discovery learning believes that it is best for learners to discover facts and
relationships for themselves

- takes place in problem solving situations

- students interact with the world by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with
questions and controversies, or performing experiments

Advantages:

- encourages active engagement 

- promotes motivation

- promotes autonomy, responsibility, and independence

Disadvantages:

- creation of cognitive overload

- potential misconceptions

- consciousness and cognition are the end product of socialization and social behaviour

- foundations of constructivism

- three major themes:

1.  social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development

2.  the more knowledgeable other has a better understanding or higher ability level than the learner (e.g., teacher, coach, adult, peers, computers)

3.  the zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with peer collaboration and the student’s ability solving the problem independently

Advantages:

- learner plays an active role

- develops social skills through various interactions as well as independence

- learning is scaffolded appropriately until learner gains the knowledge and independence to perform independently

Disadvantages:

- rests heavily on the ideas of cultural influence

- teacher must understand each student’s ZPD for it to be effective

- people learn from one another through observation, imitation, and modeling

- a bridge between behaviourist and cognitive learning theories

- explains human behaviour in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural, and environmental influences

- necessary conditions: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation

- “reciprocal determinism” – the world and a person’s behaviour cause each other

- personality is an interaction between three components: the environment, behaviour, and one’s psychological processes

- Application to real life (measurements of real spaces, word problems using acquired skills, etc.)

- Authentic-assessment
methods