Constructivist Learning Theory Review
The Constructivist Theory of education is the idea that the learner is able to use current and past experiences to teach themselves and the teacher is only present to facilitate their learning and fill in any gaps the student may have. The learning is primarily done with hands-on experience. For example, a child may see their parent writing and want to learn how to write. So, when they go to school, they would try to teach themselves to write and the teacher would only help them if they cannot figure it out on their own. This style of education focuses on the student more than the subject.
Today we want to go over briefly the constructivist theory of education (constructivist theory of education). This particular theory was articulated by Dewey back in the early twentieth century, as well as Montessori, and you’ve probably heard of Montessori schools.
The idea behind constructivist theory is that most learning is done not abstractly, as concepts are put into the brain, but experientially; and that the learner, while exploring the environment, and exploring the subject, and experientially applying things, basically takes what they already know, currently or in the past, and as the new information comes in they understand it, interpret it, and apply it based on what they already know, currently or in the past.
New knowledge and ideas are built and constructed on current or past knowledge. The learner has already learned some things, and based on what they already know, then they process the new material (the new information) coming in and build and construct it on that foundation. Each new thing comes in, gets built on what they knew from the past.
The learner selects and transforms new information based on that current or past knowledge. Now, what’s interesting about this is that (because of that) its learner focused, not subject focused. By that I mean, the learner is the one who’s sort of in the driving seat and the teacher becomes the facilitator, so the teacher presents the environment, and the information, and encourages, and helps guide, but doesn’t get in the way of the learner exploring that new information and processing it.
It’s experience-based. In Montessori schools this is seen very clearly; there are a lot of different areas set up, and the teachers there as facilitators, help the children explore those areas as they want to, and assist them, but its learner driven not subject driven.
To give you an example of this, my own younger sister was in a Montessori school, and she had noticed my father reading the newspaper and she wondered what reading was. What are these lines on the paper? My dad explained reading. Well, she went back to the Montessori school, and with the teacher’s facilitation, taught herself how to read.
The learner was motivated, had the experience, constructed the idea, and was soon able to read on her own—and this is preschool. She knew her alphabet, and she applied it. It wasn’t as if the subject of reading was brought forward and, “Now you’re going to read,” although sometimes that does have to happen, but the learner said, “I want to read,” and was motivated, therefore, to explore that environment.
The idea of letters producing sounds, producing words, producing meaning in sentences, and paragraphs, (and whatnot) and proceeded to teach herself to read. Now on the converse side of this, where basically concepts are taught, but no experience is given, (to show how deficient it is) I taught English in Japan for a couple of years, and I was part of a program that taught in the Japanese school system, their public schools, high schools.
In the Japanese education system, the students are required to study English for six years. In the process of that, most schools, the teacher is only imparting knowledge, giving the concepts, teaching the grammar, but the language itself is never experientially explored in most schools.
The students come into the English classroom, the teacher comes into the English classroom, students open their books and the teacher starts to lecture, in Japanese, about a point of English grammar. They take copious notes, and then when the time comes for the test, they can describe the grammar, in Japanese, better than any native English speaker is capable of, almost.
They understand the intricacies of our language, but because they never actually speak it, after six years of studying English, they can’t almost put a sentence together. It’s very sad in some ways that they’ve developed a system that doesn’t let the learner explore the language by actually experientially using it.
That’s what I was there to do is to try to introduce the actual use of the language in the classroom, and to get the students excited about using the language and therefore really learning it, instead of just studying about it. Anyway, those are just a couple examples, one on the positive side, one on the negative side, about constructivist theory.
It’s experienced based, Dewey and Montessori are behind it, learner focused rather than subject focused, the teacher is there just as a facilitator to help the learner explore and experience that particular environment and subject, and the learner basically selects new information, transforms new information, based on current or past knowledge, so that new ideas and knowledge are built or constructed, then, on that foundation of past information.