I liked how this was short and sweet and that the images were nice. It was an easy intro in simple terms.

I like how there are examples of ZPD at the end of the article.

This chapter from an OER textbook gives examples of what a teacher's role and students' participation may look like in a social constructivist classroom. I found that the suggestions at the end of the chapter were especially relevant to "real world" application.

While this blog post emphasizes its critiques of constructionism, I feel that mainly of these arguments can be made against constructivism as well. While I would not want to erase the importance of the individual in learning, it is valid to consider to what degree we as educators believe in objective truths existing outside of individual (or group) perspectives.

Something I think is important to take from this success in mentorship and in the workplace is that it should ostensibly apply to the kinds of people one would get at any type of librarianship positions - it demonstrates a capacity to improve learning in ways that other ways may have struggled a lot more with. It also means that intentionally viewing more studies in the context of, say, a public library, could reveal ways for us to modify the way we show the library to users of various types, and what teaching techniques will or won't work with certain communities of people (or perhaps work with all of them, for even remotely receptive audiences!).

For instance, regarding the "well I should only provide fundamentalist things to this Christian child" is like, a very strange argument. You provide all the resources, invite them to look at all the opinions, decide for themselves what seems to be the most correct opinion, answering their questions where they are and mediating. If they don't agree in the end I think the author is uncomfortable with that conclusion, wanting to say we should've asserted what the author believes to be true. I obviously agree with this, too, as a trans woman, but part of what I like about it is I do generally view arbitration of true to be an imperialistic kind of project and that the good ideas, when fairly considered and digested when the receiving party is ready to digest them, is going to work out once their social context changes from experiences like at the library's.

It's really helpful to see an example of this type of teaching in action, especially if someone is (like me) new to educational theory. I thought social constructivism had to be this really complicated, hard-to-implement practice to use in the classroom, only to discover that things like small-group work and call-and-response activities, things I remember doing in school, counted as social constructivist activities.

I agree with Lyssa that one should provide all available resources and opinions, but unfortunately, we cannot always control the views of others as much as we may want to.

I will say, similar to y'all, I do not actually condone the opinions of the blog writer. Primarily because I believe it is a harmful aspect of capitalism and white supremacy to state that there is a singular objective truth in all circumstances. This desire for objective truth is often used to harm oppressed groups because, as we all know, those in positions of power get to decide what truth is.

However, given that discussions of how to "teach the truth" are ones that I often see in educational (and some library) spheres, I still felt it was valuable to share one author's criticism of constructivist thought. To examine the critiques of the practices we wish to adopt allows us to consider how we may need to defend those practices in the future.

Thanks to all who shared in response - your perspectives helped deepen my own. - Sloan

In the article you shared, I think it was interesting that the "cons" identified were all things that would negatively impact educators (lack of standardized data, increased time and effort). As someone who currently works in the classroom, I know firsthand that these are major barriers that teachers express frustration about even when not attempting pedagogy rooted in constructivist theory.

That, in turn, makes me think about so much of instructional practice compared to instructional theory and reveals major discrepancies between the two. If I were to attempt to apply what we read about critical pedagogy, I would also say that it reveals what our current educational system values. The question then becomes - do we as library professionals serve the system or more abstract values in our practice?

Granted, I come from an engineering environment in which showing data to management generally caused movement, but I haven't been employed in education professionally yet, so the culture may be less receptive to that form of persuasion. I would be curious, at least.

• While we already have many resources featuring the key features of constructivist theory, I found the bottom half of this infographic interesting. Because of the time period when Vygotsky worked and the educational styles typically associated with constructivism (Montessori, Reggio Emelia, etc) I rarely see references to digital learning tools in discussions on how to engage students.

However, the fly in the ointment is that public schools and libraries are publicly funded. This year, I know MANY districts in Wisconsin applied for referendums to support public school districts. Anecdotally, I also know library services are typically reduced or cut in the first waves because our current educational system tends to view it as "non-essential" compared to classroom education. Which leads to the problem of how to convince those paying taxes (including folks who don't utilize schools or libraries) that they should "pay" for these services - especially if they don't personally subscribe to the idea that the betterment of a community has value over the personal wealth of an individual.

That, of course, strays quite a bit from exploring constructivism in education. However, I would argue if you are raised and taught with constructivist theory, you may be more likely to invest in the benefits of the group.

Also: if someone knows a more streamlined way to respond to a post, please let me know. I attempted to find a comment button and was unsuccessful - though it may be a bit of first-trimester brain fog. Thanks for your patience and for jumpstarting some great discussion!

-Sloan

I think the tools and examples the author gives in this article are great for older students, but my daughter was in kindergarten and first grade, and I was sad that her first "School" experience was in our home away from others. I did my best to be her guide but she didn't get that experience of working with others like she would have gotten in a classroom.

I know of others who homeschool currently and before COVID-19, and they have communities that they meet up with, so there is still a social part, but during the pandemic, we didn't have that available to us, so it was a lonely couple of years for my whole family. And when my daughter finally attended school, she was very nervous and anxious to be in a classroom and compare herself to others and was afraid to speak up out of fear she may be wrong because it was just me and her and her baby sisters for two years. Now she is in 4th grade and less anxious, but it took her about two years to get where she is today.

Leaning on principles of social constructivism seemed to benefit this writer well when it came to adjusting to online teaching. They were cognizant of the barriers different students might face regarding access to a digital classroom (poor internet access at home, loud or cluttered home environments, huge time differences for international students, and so on). During such a hectic time, it makes sense, I think, to fall back on a teaching style that is focused more on nurturing an interest in learning for students rather than meeting specific testing benchmarks.