Constructivism - Presentation

What is constructivism?

I find it difficult to find a clean (i.e., official) definition of constructivism or to isolate this construct from from a set of related constructs (e.g., anchored or contextualized knowledge).

I think a simple perspective is to suggest that learners create (construct) personal meaning. They build meaning for themselves rather than gather it from external sources. This perspective is consistent with information processing (although you seldom hear constructivism and information processing used together) because in the view of information processing we have used new information is purposefully integrated among the existing structure of long term memory. The learner "finds" connections for new information (perhaps through inference or reflection) and then encodes information to both extend the amount and structure of what is known.

Piaget, with his proposed processes of accommodation and assimilation, would provide a historical example of the building of understanding. Bruner and Vygotsky are also mentioned as constructivists.

Here are some principles of constructivism? (based on Jonassen, 1999, many of the comments are based on my own analysis)
1) Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted
I think it is important to understand that constructivism (like information processing) is a theory of learning and not a theory of teaching. Perhaps, you might translate this as learners construct personal meaning "in spite" of the way they are taught. Some instructional methods might allow this process to be more productive or efficient, but I think we all interpret experiences within our own unique knowledge structures and generate our own stored representations (knowledge). Lecture and multiple choice tests cannot prevent personal interpretation and no particular experiential method can guarantee it. This just seems reasonable to me - there have been successful and creative learners throughout history and I think there is a very real danger of simplifying what learners do and therefore what teachers should do. Constructivism describes learners as active, generative, and resourceful.

I would argue that "purpose" and the presence of relevant existing knowledge are critical variables. A learner with existing knowledge and a desire to understand will likely construct understanding from a wide variety of instructional experiences. Efficiency might even be highest in some settings that would not be high on the list of those taking a simplistic constructivist view (e.g., book, presentation). The "experiential" methods that are "in", in my opinion are of unique value when the learner has no obvious purpose or lacks relevant existing knowledge.

2) Knowledge results from activity, so knowledge in embedded in activity
This position argues that understanding cannot be separated from our experiences. What I think is at issue is when these experiences occurred relative to the time of learning. Do learning and experience have to co-occur (which would be the most extreme experiential expectation) or can we learn in the present by connecting new ideas with past experiences?

Papert (the MIT professor responsible for LOGO - a computer language developed for children) differentiated constructivism from constructionism. I interpreted constructionism to be similar to mathemagenic (I think it my own mental behavior in doing this is a great example of constructivism. I am using my existing knowledge to create personal understanding. This does not mean that might meaning is correct according to the interpretion of other experts.)  Constructionism involves some external activity of making something (e.g., writing a computer program, writing a position paper). Constructivism was to refer to internal (mental) behavior. Constructionism might increase the probability of constructivism, but it would not be required.

3) Knowledge is anchored in and indexed by the context in which the learning activity occurs.
This argument suggests that we cannot learn principles, concepts abstracted from the world and eventually hope to use these principles, concepts in real world settings. If you do not think this happens, consider whether you have ever the following exchange:
Student: "Why do we have to know this?"
Teacher "It will be important to know some day."
The teacher is correct, but the idea of "anchored and indexed knowledge" suggests that the lack of connections established at the time of learning will make it unlikely that the "abstract" ideas will be available when needed. Note the similarity here to the ideas of "encoding specificity" and "inert knowledge." 

The issue described here is sometimes described as transfer. This issue is really what formal education is all about - learning in one context (school) for use in another (life). It is a very challenging problem (whether constructivist or not) and at the extreme might argue that the best way and time to learn anything is when you need to know it . Trying to learn ahead of time and outside the context of application is going to be much less efficient.

This has been pretty abstract, but I hope these ideas will get you thinking (constructing).

Some specific comments on information in Bruning, et al.

One of the issues that troubles some people about constructivism is the notion that individuals develop personal understanding. How then can individuals learn the "right" way of understanding what is known in any discipline? The social constructivists have an answer. Information that is acted on in the construction of personal understanding comes not only from information presentations (nonresponsive sources such as books, lectures, TV), but also from responsive information sources (other people). The phrase "negotiated meaning" sometimes describes the function of the social environment. We take in information, interpret it (constructivism), but then also express our personal understanding within a social context. What we express generates feedback from others which serves as new information to be acted on internally (constructivism). So while individual knowledge is somewhat idiosyncratic, it is pretty rare that we have lots of really "off the wall" ideas. We share common "understandings" because we "negotiate" what things mean and the way things work. From this point of view, you should be able to predict some of the instructional techniques and strategies that social constructivists would support.

Creating a reflective environment

Creating a reflective environment may sound kind of vague, but I think it is a useful way to summarize the experiences and motivational attributes various theorists say are important to encourage students to move beyond information storage to knowledge construction (I will have to remember that last phrase!).

Tishman, et al. ("The thinking classroom") describes the need to establish a "disposition to think." She suggests that encouraging thinking, developing and employing a vocabulary that describe thinking behaviors, and dealing with topics that allow a related discussion of the thinking associated with student decisions and actions create this kind of environment.

There is a short passage in the book that I thought made an interesting observation about such environments (see page 201). "Because of its unfamiliarity, students may initially strongly resist this kind of coaching approach and become unsettled, even angry, when there seem to be "no right answers." They may become frustrated and demand to be told what is "correct. The teacher-coach, however, must keep in mind that he or she is managing a transaction between learners and the environment ..."

The book's discussion of classroom discourse and the statement that "classroom discourse has not been particularly supportive of student expression and reflection" (p. 203). Reminded me of the research on wait time. I think I mentioned this variable in a chat. Wait time is the delay after a teacher asks a question or after a student pauses during a response before the teacher speaks again. Average wait time (studied at many grade levels) is less than 1.5 seconds. You can see what this style of interaction would lack as a way to promote student reflection. Very brief wait times encourage a certain type of question - those that allow the generation of an answer with little thought.

I wrote the material above in 2001, here are some additional comments:

What is constructivism?

Richard Mayer (considered one of the most influential educational psychologists of our time) recently published an article in Amercian Psychology in which he took a negative position on how most are interpreting constructivism. (American Psychologist, 2004, 59, 14-19).

His definition (page 14) is that constructivists assume "learning is an active process in which learners are active sense makers who seek to build coherent and organized knowledge."

His concern is that "active" has been interpreted as active in a behavioral way. "...passive venues involving books, lectures, and on-line presentations are classified as nonconstructivist teaching whereas active venues such as group discussions, hands-on activities, and interactive games are classified as constructivist teaching."

In his article, he goes on to equate the misguided interpretation of constructivism as consistent with "discovery learning" because this approach involves lots of hands-on activity, group discussion, and free exploration. His article reviews the work on pure vs. guided discovery and concludes that pure discovery has little empirical support.

From a cognitive perspective, he suggests that without teacher structuring and guidance, students may not activate appropriate personal knowledge, sense connections between existing knowledge and new experiences, do the necessary work to reinterpret existing knowledge in terms of new experiences,etc.

His position is that it is "cognitive" activity and not necessarily "hands-on" activity that is the key.

The Mayer article reminded me of work that I have been citing for some time (Mayer did not include this reference). My thinking about the necessary conditions for learning have been shaped by the writing of David Ausubel (e.g., Ausubel, Novak & Hanesian (1968). Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View (2nd Ed). Holt). Ausubel provided a similar analysis of discovery learning (see graph below) and he had a concept that was similar to constructivism (meaningful learning). Meaningful learning was learning in which new experiences were integrated with what is already known (sounds like constructivism to me) and was to be contrasted with rote learning.

Ausubel believed a learner could learn meaningfully from either discovery or reception experiences as long as the learner did the work to learn meaningfully. His list of reasons this might not happen (lack of relevant existing knowledge, lack of motivation) is remarkably similar to what Mayer describes.

An exercise Ausubel recommends is that one image a space defined by the rote-meaningful and the reception-discovery dimensions and then place learning tasks within this space.

In anticipated defense of those who might criticize his article, Mayer recognizes that some will claim activities he has labeled as "constructivist" do not meet the necessary conditions for constructivism. Mayer suggests that he believes in testing the value of proposed instructional methods and if he has tested the wrong methods, then advocates for constructivist teaching need to more clearly identify the criteria by which more appropriate demonstrations can be selected for analysis.

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